Lawmakers like making it so that various measures go into effect on the first of the month. It's kind of arbitrary, but it's also universal enough that I kind of get it.
In North Carolina, a state that's kind of been in the crosshairs of late, they had a couple of measures go into effect as of today that I wanted us to talk about a bit.
The first deals with guns on private school campuses.
House Bill 193 allows employees and volunteers at private schools to carry firearms and stun guns on school grounds if they have written permission from the school's board of trustees or administrative director, have a concealed handgun permit and have completed a training course.
The law also allows people attending religious services to carry a gun if the private school is connected to a place of worship.
Republican bill supporters cited a shooting at a religious school as the reason behind the new law.
Opponents argued it made schools less safe.
"We should keep (guns) out of our schools unless they are in the possession of law enforcement," said Gov. Stein when he vetoed the bill.
Stein's veto was overriden, so he can kind of suck eggs on that.
The truth of the matter is that this measure allows private schools--you know, the schools that the state doesn't pay for, doesn't run, and shouldn't really have much, if any, say in how they're run? Those private schools--to permit people to carry guns. It says nothing about public schools and it's also private schools where they're unlikely to have the means to have school resource officers on campus. Having staff members who are vetted and trained to carry guns is a big boon to school safety.
It's not like the rules that are already in effect have done a lot ot stop school massacres in the first place, after all.
That wasn't the only law that took effect today that we should pay attention to. There's another one that, while it doesn't deal with guns directly, it's the result of a situation we have all followed to some degree or another.
Iryna's Law
This law was passed after the deadly stabbing in Charlotte of Iryna Zarutska on the light-rail in August.
Stein signed the bill into law with some bipartisan support.
The law has forced some law enforcement jurisdictions to make changes due to the funding needed to support the law.
Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson announced they will no longer accept Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees due to Iryna's Law.
In a Facebook post, Sheriff Johnson cited recent changes governing pretrial release, electronic monitoring, and detention of individuals charged with violent offenses taking effect on December 1.
"These changes materially affect our ability to manage classification, housing, and supervision of detainees in our facility and will require us to prioritize bed space and resources for local and state inmates and remain compliant with state law and court directives,' said Sheriff Johnson.
This is a positive step forward.
However, it's also one of those things that may be more show than go. While it does deal with things like monitoring of people, an ankle device won't stop someone from stabbing some innocent young woman for no reason at all beyond their own sick gratification.
The changes in rules, though, might. If people like Iryna's killer are kept locked up, then it'll keep others from potentially losing their lives as Iryna did, all because some deranged lunatic wanted blood on his hands.
This could be a start, but a better start would be to override Stein's veto on constitutional carry and end buses being gun-free zones throughout the state. If one person had been armed, that whole situation might have ended differently, and Iryna might still be alive.
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