Ohio just made a bold move to counter school shootings in their state. While the Left is still jabbering about getting rid of America’s guns, the Republicans in Ohio are taking a stand to keep their children protected as well as the 2nd Amendment.
This week a new law went into effect in Ohio that allows teachers, principals, and school staff to carry firearms while in the classroom. House bill 99 will now require only 24 hours of training, previously a bill required 700 hours. Each year there will need to be 8 hours of re-qualification training. Staff at each school will also be required to have a yearly criminal background check.
Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) said regarding this new law, “We have a lot of requests from schools to allow this to be done to continue to help our public and private schools get the tools they need to protect our children. … We have an obligation to do everything we can every single day to try and protect our kids.”
The training for staff in the schools will focus on how to stop an active shooter using de-escalation techniques and also first aid care.
Gov. DeWine made it clear that the bill does not mandate that teachers be armed, but it leaves the decision up to local school districts. The districts can also require more than 24 hours for training.
The bill was introduced in Ohio by Rep. Thomas Hall. He said that it was necessary because it can take first responders too long to get to the site of an emergency.
“Some of the inner city schools have police officers at their school, some of these rural schools don’t have that luxury,” Hall said in a statement.
Previously the only person who could be armed in a school safety zone is an employee who functioned as a security officer or someone who had written authorization from the board of education.
Ohio’s governor also secured $100 million to help Ohio K-12 schools pay for security upgrades. These will include visitor badging systems, security training, and door locking systems.
Gov. DeWine talking about school safety upgrades as well as HB 99, which gives teachers an option to be armed in schools. @wsyx6 pic.twitter.com/ESZb0XKLXf
— Alexis Moberger (@alexis_moberger) June 13, 2022
