Ohio
Lawmakers debate training for armed school employees
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio school district employees could once again be allowed to carry guns, under legislation being fast-tracked by Republican lawmakers to counter the impact of a court ruling that restricted the practice.
The measure aims to undo the effect of an Ohio Supreme Court ruling last year, which held that under current law, armed school workers would need hundreds of hours of training.
Democrats said the legislation sends the wrong message a week after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Republicans say the measure could prevent such shootings.
Under the latest version of the bill, school employees who carry guns would need up to 24 hours of initial training, then up to eight hours of requalification training annually. The bill didn’t specify a total minimum training requirement, leading to criticism from Democrats that the legislation is being pushed too quickly without all the details.
Training must include how to stop an active shooter, how to de-escalate a violent situation, trauma and first-aid care, at least four hours in “scenario-based or simulated training exercises,” and completing “tactical live firearms training,” according to the bill.
The bill is opposed by major law enforcement groups and gun control advocates, and supported by a handful of police departments and school districts. More than two dozen states allow the arming of school employees under some circumstances.
The GOP-controlled Senate approved the measure Wednesday along mostly partisan lines, a day after its passage in committee.
Debate was lengthy and charged.
Sen. Theresa Fedor, a Toledo Democrat, called the training requirements inadequate and warned that lawmakers supporting the bill “will have blood on your hands” if the legislation leads to an accidental shooting incident in a school. Sen. Niraj Antani, a Dayton-area Republican, accused Democrats of “crying crocodile tears” by continually exaggerating the negative consequences of bills expanding access to guns.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine supports the legislation, as long as it requires adequate and annual training for armed employees. DeWine underscored his support last week as he announced plans to spend “a significant amount of money” to help schools create physical barriers against attacks without going into details.
The Supreme Court ruling came after Madison local schools in southwestern Ohio voted to allow teachers and staff who received 24 hours of one-time concealed weapons training to carry firearms following a 2016 school shooting. After the district adopted the armed program in 2018, a group of parents successfully sued the district to prevent teachers from being armed without extensive training, equivalent to what a police officer undergoes.
One of those parents, Erin Gabbard, testified in opposition to the bill Tuesday, calling it radical and reckless.
“This does not protect our children, it endangers them,” Gabbard said. “Allowing teachers to go armed with our children at school with, at most, 24 hours of training is woefully inadequate. It makes our children less safe.”
Bill opponents, including educators and gun control advocates, far outnumbered supporters at Tuesday’s hearing. One supporter, Buckeye Firearms Association lobbyist Rob Sexton, said arming teachers would give children a fighting chance in the event “the worst happens in our schools.”
He also warned against making training so rigorous that it “becomes a disincentive that people don’t actually wind up enrolling in the program. We actually want school districts and people to be willing to take advantage of this option to protect our kids.”
Since the bill requires that armed employees have a concealed weapons permit, that adds eight hours to the training requirement, Sexton said.
The bill is opposed by major law enforcement groups and gun control advocates, and supported by a handful of police departments and school districts.
Florida
State’s abortion restriction law challenged with lawsuit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Reproductive health providers sued Florida on Wednesday over a new law banning abortions after 15 weeks, one of numerous legal challenges to such laws passed across the country by Republican leaders in anticipation of a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision that would limit the procedure.
The filing in state court in Tallahassee from Planned Parenthood and other health centers alleges that the law violates a provision in the state constitution guaranteeing a person’s right to privacy, “including the right to abortion.”
“HB 5 radically curtails the ability of Floridians to make decisions about whether or not to continue a pregnancy and have a child, in violation of their rights under the Florida Constitution,” the filing reads.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the 15-week ban into law in April, as part of a growing conservative movement to restrict access to the procedure after a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion signaled it would uphold a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks. The high court’s decision, expected this summer, could potentially weaken or overturn Roe v. Wade and make other legal challenges unlikely to succeed.
In a statement, DeSantis’ office said it “is confident that this law will ultimately withstand all legal challenges.”
Florida’s law, which is set to take effect July 1, contains exceptions if the abortion is necessary to save a mother’s life, prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It does not allow for exemptions in cases where pregnancies were caused by rape, incest or human trafficking. Under current law, Florida allows abortions up to 24 weeks.
A federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report said about 2% of the nearly 72,000 abortions reported in Florida in 2019 were performed after 15 weeks. That same year, 2,256 out-of-state residents got abortions in Florida, with the majority — about 1,200 — coming from Georgia and more than 300 from Alabama, according to the CDC. The origin of the remaining patients was not clear.
Florida Republicans have said they want the state to be well placed to limit access to abortions if the Supreme Court upholds Mississippi’s law. If Roe is overturned, 26 states are certain or likely to quickly ban or severely restrict abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion rights.
Republican lawmakers in other states have introduced new abortion restrictions, some similar to a Texas law that bans the procedure after roughly six weeks and leaves enforcement up to private citizens.
In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has signed a bill to make it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to a decade in prison.
Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in March signed legislation to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks if the U.S. Supreme Court leaves Mississippi’s law in place.
