Critics are welcoming the demise of a controversial measure that would have allowed Tennessee school systems to arm some willing, trained staff and teachers after the bill was voted down Tuesday in a House panel.
Calling the proposal “dangerous,” Carol Frazier, a Tennessee volunteer with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said members who flocked to the state Capitol in opposition are “thankful that lawmakers in Nashville listened to their constituents, educators and law enforcement and defeated this reckless proposal.”
Student Graham Shults speaks during the March for Our Lives in Coolidge Park on Saturday, March 24, 2018, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Thousands of demonstrators marched locally in solidarity with national protests against gun violence spurred by last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla.Graham Shults, a sophomore at Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts, said that after he and other students “worked so hard on it” the vote “made us feel as a group like our voices were heard. We’re not stopping here. That’s just one small victory, one piece of this puzzle.”
House Education Administration and Planning Committee members voted down the measure, sponsored by Rep. David Byrd, R-Waynesboro, on a voice vote.
Byrd pushed the legislation to help poor school systems in counties like his that he says can’t afford to pay school resource officers.