Iowa House passes bill to arm school staff after Perry High shooting

DES MOINES — Iowa House Republicans passed a bill late Wednesday night, after lengthy debate and vocal opposition by Democrats, that would create a new permitting process for Iowa school districts to arm trained staff.

House File 2586 passed on a party-line vote, 61-34, at around 11 p.m. following nearly two hours of debate, with Democrats opposed. The bill now heads to the Iowa Senate for consideration.

Iowa Code currently allows approved school staff to carry a gun on campus, should they choose. Two districts in northwest Iowa put policies in place but rescinded them last year to avoid being dropped by their insurance carrier for liability coverage.

This year’s legislation looks to address insurers’ concerns by putting in place a new permitting process that allows employees at Iowa’s public and private schools and colleges to carry a firearm on school grounds during school hours. It would also provide qualified immunity and indemnify school districts from criminal or civil liability for all “damages incurred pursuant to the application of reasonable force.”

There’s no mention of insurance in the bill. House Republican lawmakers said their intent is to bring insurers back to the table, and said they’re confident the permitting, training and indemnity provisions in the bill will alleviate insurers’ concerns.

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School districts would not be required to arm staff. Rather, the bill provides requirements for those districts that choose to do so.

“This bill sets a very high standard because we are talking about the safety of our children,” said Rep. Phil Thompson, R-Boone, lead sponsor of the bill and chair of the House Public Safety Committee.

“The bar must be high. We recognize that this responsibility must be taken very seriously,” Thompson said. “The strict training regimen outlined in this bill ensures that the employees who acquire this permit are equipped with the skills and proficiency to act appropriately in the event of an emergency.”

In order to receive a professional permit to carry weapons, employees would have to complete a firearms safety course, in addition to one-time legal training on issues like qualified immunity, as well as annual communication and emergency medical trainings approved by the Iowa Department of Public Safety, plus quarterly live firearms training.

The bill also would require school districts with at least 8,000 students — among them Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Council Bluffs, Iowa City and Sioux City — to have at least one armed private security guard or school resource officer in each district high school. Districts could opt out of the requirement for having an armed security officer at a high school by a vote of the school board.

Schools with fewer than 8,000 students would be encouraged, but not required, to employ school resource officers or security officers at high schools. The state would establish a school security personnel grant program fund that would match up to $50,000 for employing security personnel.

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Identities of school staff issued a weapons permit would be confidential and not subject to disclosure under Iowa’s open records law.

"I don’t have a choice of knowing of how many guns are around my second-grader,“ House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, said. ” … I don’t have a choice of knowing whether Mrs. Kennedy or Mrs. Smith is the teacher I want if I don’t want my kid’s teacher to have a gun.“

Staff in the district will be allowed to carry concealed weapons during school hours. It would be up to districts to decide which firearms staff could carry and whether the district would provide those or allow use of personal firearms, Thompson said.

The move comes in the wake of a shooting last month at Perry High School that killed 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, a sixth-grader, and Principal Dan Marburger. Six other people were injured in the shooting. The 17-year-old student who opened fire died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

Supporters of the bill said the fastest way to respond to a school shooting is to have armed personnel on site, trained and available to respond at a moment's notice.

Parents, law enforcement and school superintendents from rural communities, as well as gun rights activists, have said while school resource officers play an important role in Iowa schools, it is unrealistic to expect a single police officer is always going to be at the right place at just the right time should tragedy strike.

They noted the Perry Community School District employs a full-time school resource officer, and said rural districts do not have the same access to nearby or fully-staffed police or sheriff’s departments as those in urban Iowa.

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“People with bad intentions are going to do bad thing. People with good intentions are there to stop them,” said House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley. “ … Look at the data. Look at the statistics. Seconds count. Seconds, save lives.

House Democrats oppose arming teachers, citing risks to staff and students. Rather, they said, lawmakers should instead pursue an evidence-based intervention plan that addresses school gun violence and they advocated for providing resources for mental health services.

Most professional education organizations have rejected the call to arm teachers, as has the National Association of School Resource Officers and the American Bar Association.

Opponents said an armed teacher is much more likely to shoot a student bystander or be shot by responding law enforcement than to be an effective solution to an active shooter in a school.

“If I’m carrying a gun and there’s a threat at the door, the thing that stands between me and a threat is 26 kids that I would take a bullet for,” said Rep. Molly Buck, a teacher and Democrat from Ankeny. “I could never live with myself if I put a bullet in one of them.”

Buck noted she’s been trained that if there’s an armed intruder to safely evacuate students or shelter in place and barricade themselves if there’s no safe way out.

“If I choose to be armed, what then is my role? Is my role to stay with my kids and keep them safe, or does my role then become to go after an intruder?” Buck said.

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Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, said insurance companies are hesitant to cover schools due to lack of data on staff safety.

“There is no data on what would happen if we arm staff in schools.,” she said. “There are too many unknowns, and the risks are high. The risks are unsecured guns left in a restroom, locker room, unlocked desk drawer and a young, curious student finding it and experimenting.”

This bill puts more children in the line of fire and nothing is more frightening.“

Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, said there have been more than 100 publicly reported incidents of mishandled guns at schools in the last five years, including a teacher accidentally firing a gun during a safety demonstration.

Wessel-Kroeschell emphasized the need for more adults in schools, rather than armed teachers, to address safety concerns and prevent violence, including providing funding for schools to hire specialists to help students with homelessness, poverty, bullying and more.

"I believe that every student in Iowa deserves to be safe in school. And I believe that every parent deserves to know their child is safe in school,“ Wessel-Kroeschell said. ”I want Iowa to make our students safe. Arming teachers does not get us there."

Instead, Democrats urged Republican lawmakers to prioritize violence prevention, intervention and “sensible” gun safety laws.

“The Republican solution to school safety is more guns,” said Rep. Lindsay James, D-Dubuque. “Iowans are crying out to us for common sense gun safety laws. Iowans want to see universal background checks and investment in safety infrastructure in our schools. The encouragement of safe storage awareness. They want to see legislation on extreme risk protection orders. They want to see an investment in mental health these are the common sense gun safety solutions that Iowans want to see.”

Windschitl said House Republicans are moving forward separate bills to address mental health and to bolster school security infrastructure.

“This is a broad-spectrum approach. While it may not be all-encompassed in this one House file, we are working on multiple different aspects to provide the safety and protection and quality of education and the environment for our children to grow and prosper,” he said. “We can all work together on this and we can provide the safety that our children deserve.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com