By week's end, the state Legislature may have voted to put guns in the hands of teachers and other public school personnel.
The legislation is permissive, not mandatory; but there will almost certainly be school districts that opt to arm some teachers, administrators or other staff who volunteer.
Several districts have done so in the past and this legislation would open the opportunity to all.
The House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on Senate Bill 164, which cleared a House committee on a voice vote late last week. Nary a "nay" vote was heard.
The bill, by Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Benton, passed the Senate last week 33-1.
It is a complicated 87-page bill that, among other things, abolishes the Arkansas Board of Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies.
The element getting the most attention, however, is this business of arming public school personnel.
Sen. Hutchinson is well intentioned. He wants someone to be able to respond quickly if someone shows up at an Arkansas school and starts shooting.
"Ideally, we'd have a resource officer in every school and this wouldn't have to be addressed, but we don't have the funds to do that and the schools don't have the funds to do that," he told the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
He said the response time for the local sheriff's office is 40 minutes in some school districts. He called it "unconscionable and unacceptable" to allow a shooter to have that much time "to execute as many kids and teachers as the shooter can."
His answer to the potentiality is to arm educators and others on staff so they can respond.
SB 164 would allow school districts to apply to the Arkansas State Police to arm employees. The state agency would get responsibilities that used to belong to the board Hutchinson proposes to eliminate.
State Police would set up training, conduct background checks and commission those chosen by their school districts to double as security officers.
While there are people who will likely accept the dual role, there is a nagging question. Should teachers, school administrators, bus drivers, janitors or lunchroom workers be asked to do this?
For some, it is simply asking too much. This isn't the role teachers or the other school employees are supposed to play or one that most would be comfortable with.
Others will volunteer and hopefully they will be as eager to train how to handle volatile, trauma-filled situations as they are to be armed.
The proper place to put responsibility for school security is with trained law enforcement. Many school districts do have resource officers who are paid to provide security, sometimes with help from the cities in which the schools are located.
But Hutchinson's point that not all can afford these officers is well taken.
A mentally ill or angry person could theoretically show up in the tiniest of school districts with gun in hand and the nearest law officer might be miles away. Any distance could be too great to cover in time.
The remote possibility of such an attack doesn't erase concerns from some parents and others about guns in public schools, even in the hands of personnel selected and trained to have them.
Certainly, a shooter could theoretically come into a classroom any day. But the guns would be in school every day.
While they would presumably be locked up and out of the reach of school children, what if a gun is not and some curious or upset or misguided child gets his or her hands on one? That, too, could be a tragedy.
The burden will be on the school district to make sure nothing like that happens. And the State Police must vet thoroughly anyone who asks to be commissioned as a security officer.
Again, the presumption is that the training will be substantial and greater, for example, than what a person who seeks a concealed-carry permit might undergo.
For sure, this legislation differs significantly from the bill state Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, failed to pass earlier in the session. It would have allowed professors who hold concealed-carry permits to bring weapons to the state's public college and university campuses.
Under Hutchinson's bill, public school districts will be able to control who carries a gun and how many will be permitted to do so.
Under Collins' bill, the colleges and universities -- which have their own law enforcement officers to provide security --wouldn't have known who else or how many people were armed on campus.
Collins may yet try again to pass his bill, but it didn't get out of committee the first time around.
By contrast, Hutchinson's bill appears to be flying through the process. It just needs House approval to go to the governor.
It is less objectionable than what Collins proposed -- even if the idea of armed teachers and other school personnel doubling as security officers is far from comforting.
Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist and longtime journalist in Northwest Arkansas. Email her at [email protected].
Commentary on 02/18/2015