Legal Clips, [May 2007]Some South Carolina lawmakers are pushing legislation that would allow people to carry concealed weapons in schools. They say it could prevent massacres like what happened last month at Virginia Tech. The measure doesn't specify who would be allowed to carry the weapons, and Rep. Jeff Duncan, the bill's sponsor, says he's willing to limit gun holders on campuses to school staff. "I'd like to think my children would be safer in their schools if a principal or a teacher has a legally-carried, um, concealed weapon, either in their desk, in their briefcase or on their persons," he says. Nearly 20 lawmakers have signed on to the measure. If signed in to law, South Carolina would join Utah as the only states that have laws allowing people to carry hidden weapons on campuses. Nationwide, 38 states ban weapons at schools. The idea has members of South Carolina School Boards Association fired up. "There's an uneasiness among educators and administrators in schools," says Debbie Elmore. "I think that this legislation is saying that the way we are going to eliminate weapons in school, to at least eliminate the threat of weapons in school, is to answer it with more weapons, and we just don't, we just don't think that that's the answer."
WISTV.com
[Full story]
Charlotte Observer
By Seanna Adcox (AP)
[Full story]
[Editor's Note: According to Steven J. Meade, General Counsel for the Idaho School Boards Association, Idaho also has a statute allowing school staff to carry concealed weapons.]