Within eight months of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' call for schools in Wyoming to allow guns to kill grizzly bears, the Michigan State Legislature now is considering a law that would allow parents with concealed weapon permits to carry guns at schools. Under the terms of the proposed law, which is opposed by numerous professional organizations in Michigan, teachers and school officials would be prohibited from carrying concealed weapons.
However, parents with concealed weapon permits and eight hours of additional training would be allowed to carry concealed weapons at schools.
An additional Michigan bill
Another bill would allow would prohibit public school districts, community colleges, and public libraries from banning concealed weapons at their facilities. If this bill is passed, it will repeal legislation passed in 2016 that prohibited guns at the Ann Arbor and Clio School Districts. Critics of the bills state the advocates are trying to capitalize on the tragic church shooting in Texas last weekend that resulted in the deaths of 26 people, mainly children.
Police object to the bill
Scott Nichols, a retired Michigan State Trooper, expressed his reservations about the bill calling for arming parents at schools. According to Nichols, the bill would make police officers' jobs much harder. This is because, as Nichols explained, it would be very difficult for officers arriving at schools to distinguish armed parents from the armed perpetrators. Nichols described this hypothetical scenario as "chaos."
'Sheep waiting for the wolf'
On the other hand, supporters of the two bills described the Gun Control advocates who object to them as "sheep waiting for the wolf," according to ABC News on Tuesday. Robert Rudowski of the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners stated that the legislation will protect the very people who have serious objections to the availability of guns for the general populace.
The subtle implication of Rudowski's stance is that the two bills have been crafted to protect gun control enthusiasts and their families even though they do not realize it. It reminds this observer of parents who tell their children that what they are doing is "good" for them even though they don't realize it.
Trump and the mentally ill
In February 2017, President Donald Trump signed legislation allowing the mentally ill to purchase guns. After last Friday's horrific mass killing of 26 people at a small town Texas church, Trump said that the issue in that massacre was not guns, but was "mental health." This causes one to ask if Trump had any recollection of the legislation that he had signed nine months ago. Sometimes peoples' actions defy all explanation.