Ohio Is Set to Give Teachers Guns and Reduce Their Gun Training Requirements

Or, of course, we could pass meaningful legislation to actually get mass killing machines out of people’s hands and prevent schools shootings from happening in the first place, so that life-or-death scenarios don’t come down to teachers’ split-second decisions.

HB99 will only place students, teachers and school personnel in greater danger. Arming “good guys” with guns has proven ineffective each time, even when said “good guys” have been trained in handling firearms for years, even decades. Throughout the Uvalde shooting, armed police officers were too afraid of the gunman’s assault rifle to even enter the school as the shooting was taking place. Arming teachers—especially with such little training—would really only increase the risk of fatal accidents.

It’s worth noting the Ohio state Supreme Court has previously ruled against similar legislation to arm teachers, stating that the Ohio Revised Code required school personnel to have 20 years of experience handling firearms—which is a little more than four hour-long training sessions—or peace officer training to be armed. DeWine seems prepared for the possibility that his new law could be thrown out as well, citing additional steps he’s taken to supposedly make schools safer in the aftermath of Uvalde at Monday’s news conference. He specifically touted $100 million in grants the state is giving to schools to upgrade building security, as well as investments in training to help school staff address behavioral health problems among students.

Investments in more resources for perennially underfunded schools will always be beneficial, especially as police departments swallow up municipal budgets across the country—all while teachers are forced to dip into their own salaries for school supplies, and the average student-to-school-counselor ratio in high schools is 311 to one. But these investments aren’t a solution to gun violence in schools, which relies on access to firearms like assault rifles and high-capacity magazines that can kill dozens in a matter of minutes.

It’s not just DeWine who’s pursuing legislation that’s either unhelpful or actively harmful. The Uvalde shooting, enabled by truly stunning police failure, has somehow inspired numerous school districts to invest in greater police presence on campus—not unlike efforts we’ve seen after previous school shootings, all of which failed to prevent the next one. The Parkland and Columbine shootings both sparked “anti-bullying” movements that seemed to place the blame on students for not smiling at each other enough, rather than lawmakers and the gun lobby. In particular, increased police and security measures at schools have never achieved anything but the worsening of the racist school-to-prison pipeline, placing Black and brown youth at greater risk of being profiled, punished, and criminalized, just for trying to go to school.

Metal detectors, police officers, and security guards have no place in healthy learning environments—kids shouldn’t have to feel like they’re going to prison to get a safe, quality education, and nor should they have to fear for their lives, just for trying to learn. DeWine and other ghoulish conservative lawmakers can try to pin the blame for school shootings on teachers’ “decision-making,” or school building infrastructure, or cyberbullying, or anything else—but school shootings and all gun violence will always come down to easy access to a firearm.