Proposed Oklahoma law would allow teachers to carry at school

BRYAN COUNTY, Oklahoma (KXII) - House Bill 2588 is to protect students and teachers if there is an active shooter in the building.

This bill was first introduced on January 21st and has already been passed in the house and been read in the Senate.

If it passes, the new law would allow the school district to decide if they would want their teachers to carry, and if so, then they would have to meet training guidelines to do so.

“What we are trying to make sure is that this is a mass shooting attempt and not a successful mass shooting and the only way to guarantee that we do that is to make sure that our teachers are trained, willing and able to carry on campus,” Oklahoma Senator of District 6 David Bullard said.

Bullard, who is also a former history teacher, said most school shootings are over within five minutes, and having teachers carry firearms on campus to protect their students is just one of the options they have looked at for students’ safety.

“What I wanted to do is make sure we put in places things and tools schools can use to make sure that their students are safe in a lot of different aspects. This is safety from somebody coming in and having an active shooter situation in your school,” Bullard said.

Bullard said they’ve seen the same pattern in school shootings with the suspects having deeper problems in their home life.

House District 94 Representative, Andy Fugate said the best way to help the suspects is to build relationships at the school with their teachers and counselors, he’s not convinced arming teachers is the answer.

“That means providing additional counseling, resources for those kids, and for those of us at the legislature, we need to be addressing the societal issues that are causing them problems, not just out in the communities but also at home,” Fugate said.

Bennington and Rock Creek mom, Morgan Hudgins, likes the idea of her kids’ teachers being armed.

“These teachers they need to put lock boxes in their drawers and or in their desk and only their finger prints can open it or you know things like that I mean, that’s my whole outlook on it because these these shooters, if they knew that these teachers had guns in their more than likely they are not going to come into the school and shoot,” Hudgins said.

If this bill doesn’t pass this session, it will not be able to go forward for two years.

Bullard said he feels good about this bill getting passed as it was seen by the Senate last year but due to COVID any bills that weren’t related to the virus were moved aside to talk about this year.

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