Day 16: Guns is
Schools Bill HB35 Update
Tuesday 02/12/2013. Sixteenth day of the Georgia Legislative Session. We had the review from committee of the HB35, bill meant to allow schools personnel
to carry concealed weapons in school property. This is the second time the
Committee of Public Safety and Homeland Security reviews this bill, and
since the previous meeting last week, I admit the subcommittee assigned to improve
the bill did a serious job making it workable. As for the current version, the
bill puts the whole discretion in the Education Board of the district in which
the school is located, from allowing the school to be part of the program, to discretion
on checking the training and eligible personnel, to costs of implementation. Given
the current budgetary crisis of the school system, I doubt many schools will
have the chance to adopt this new policy.
HB35 is clearly an attempt to address the issue of safety in schools,
especially after the tragedy of Newtown and our very own local shooting. Although
the bill is more workable now, its proposal as a real safety solution still lingers
in incertitude when its implementation is considered. Gun control is taking
much national attention lately, but there is a social singularity that needs to
be considered when thinking in long term solution for the issue: the lack of acknowledgment
we as society give to the destructive power of a gun. When we see so many cases
of accidental shootings and misuses of weapons, it is legitimate to ask whether
the solution to a problem of violence is to add more potential to violence to
the equation, especially if we see such intense emotional attachment to guns as
we have witnessed by the most vocal supporters of the Second Amendment.
HB35 was approved by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee,
and it is ready to get a date to be in the floor of the House.
Rep. Paul Battles (R-Cartersville), author of HB35.
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