Ignoring reservations, Idaho House passes bill to allow concealed-carry guns in school

Teachers in public classrooms across Idaho, like here in the Salmon School District, would be allowed to carry concealed guns without notifying parents or students under a bill that just passed the House. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/TNS)

BOISE, Idaho — A bill to allow any public school employee with an “enhanced” concealed weapons permit to carry a gun in hallways, classes and lunchrooms across the state passed the Idaho House on Wednesday.

House Bill 415 would require teachers or other employees who want to carry guns to notify their principal, but it does not require them to notify their local school board or students and parents.

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The Idaho Association of School Resource Officers and the Boise School District opposed the bill, as did other districts and teachers unions.

“Terrorism is upon us,” Rep. Edward Hill, R-Eagle, told other lawmakers on the House floor. He said there is a “desperate need to secure our schools against this threat” and to close the “chasm of vulnerability” when it comes to school shootings.

Enhanced permits include requirements that a person be 21 or older, have taken an 8-hour gun course, submit to a background check and have lived in Idaho for at least six months.

Records of which school employees are armed would be kept sealed and shared only with local law enforcement. The bill also would require that public schools remove their “gun-free zone” signs.

“Idaho House Bill 415 would remove local control from elected school boards to determine which, if any, staff would be allowed to carry firearms on campus,” Idaho Association of School Resource Officers President Morgan Ballis said in a statement, noting that 95% of school shooters are students who could be stopped if they are identified along the “pathway to violence.” “This legislation is a drastic misprioritization of statewide school safety initiatives with a focus on response over prevention.”

Idaho has no behavioral threat assessment requirements for public schools, Ballis said.

Despite over an hour of debate and concern from a number of lawmakers that the bill would force guns into school districts that don’t want them, or undercut school districts that allow guns in schools with stricter requirements, it passed 53-16.

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