Governor Signs Bill Permitting School Employees To Carry Guns On Campus

On Monday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that he has signed a bill into law. It will make it less complicated for teachers to be able to take guns into schools.

The law will lessen the total number of hours that teachers and other staff have to be trained. No longer will teachers have to undergo 700 hours of training; instead, they can now complete the course in less than a day.

“Our goal is to continue to help our public and private schools get the tools they need to protect our children. We have an obligation to do everything we can every single day to try and protect our kids,” the governor stated.

“My office worked with the General Assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety. It ensures training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training,” he said.

The new law will require eight hours of pre-qualification training each year. It will include how to stop an active shooter, de-escalation methods, and first aid measures.

The law has been criticized by teachers’ unions, Ohio’s Fraternal Order of Police, and gun safety organizations. They feel that it doesn’t require enough training and is “dangerous and irresponsible.”

GOP Rep. Thomas Hall has sponsored the bill because of the response issues in the state’s rural locations.

“I use the example of rural schools versus urban schools. Urban schools, they have school resource officers. They have a police force that can be there within 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Some of these schools are not as fortunate,” he remarked.

A study was done in 2020. It discovered 28 states, including Texas, permit teachers or school staff to carry firearms in the classroom in certain situations.