Iowa House Passes Bill Earmarking $3 Million to Arm, Train Teachers

AP Photo/ Rick Bowmer

While some people are uncomfortable with this fact, the truth is that the best way to stop a school massacre is for there to be people with guns in the school to prevent it. School resource officers are fine and I think every school in the nation needs them, but we saw in Parkland that some officers are more useful than others in such circumstances.

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That means school staff should probably be armed as well. After all, even if they're not interested in saving kids' lives, they're likely to be interested in saving their own, which will still result in protecting students.

And a number of states allow such a thing now, thankfully.

In Iowa, they're even going so far as to earmark a chunk of change to train and arm the teachers.

Iowa House lawmakers are pushing through a bill that would provide $3 million to pay for training for school districts that choose to arm staff members and could be used to buy guns for school employees.

The legislation, House Study Bill 692, is part of a larger bill with other school safety requirements. It is meant to complement a separate measure House lawmakers passed last week that would allow teachers and other school staff to obtain a professional permit to carry guns on school grounds, and provide them with legal immunity for the use of reasonable force.

Both bills are part of Republicans' legislative response to a deadly shooting at Perry High School in January.

School districts would be limited to grants of $25,000, under the bill. They could use the money to purchase infrastructure and equipment related to arming staff, or to facilitate the required staff training.

Schools could also use the money to "provide stipends to employees who participate in the training associated with employee permits to carry weapons," the bill states.

The bill passed the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday on a party-line vote after Republicans amended the legislation to create the grant program for costs associated with arming school staff.

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I'm not a big fan of the stipend thing, personally. I'd rather staff carry a gun because they want to, not because they can pick up a few bucks for doing so. If it's just about the money, someone will decide they don't need to carry because no one is really going to check, all while pocketing the cash.

Meanwhile, someone who is carrying because they believe they can make a difference or because they want to protect their own life is more likely to have on if and when it's needed.

But beyond that, there's almost nothing for me to complain about with this.

Others, however, have found plenty, including the old tired chestnut of "you're putting more guns into schools!"

Look, guns aren't cursed objects injecting their own will onto those who carry them. The presence of more guns, in total, doesn't make an environment more dangerous. Go to any Second Amendment event and you'll see hundreds of people carrying guns and not a soul has ever been shot at any of them.

Why? Because when good guys are carrying guns, people don't get shot unless they need to be shot.

This is true at Second Amendment events and it's true in every school in the country that already has armed teachers.

There haven't been the problems anti-gunners claimed and there won't be in Iowa. It's hilarious how often they make the same claims that have literally never come to fruition, yet they're making them again and the media won't call them on it.

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Hilarious, yet sad.

Either way, this bill is set to do some good things for a lot of people in Iowa. It's going to make it so another Perry doesn't happen, which is the point.

And if anti-gunners in the state don't like it, well, they'll get over it.

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