Bill allowing private schools to adopt gun policy heads to Haslam

[macville]

http://www.wbir.com/news/politics/bill-allowing-private-schools-to-adopt-gun-policy-heads-to-haslam/100163052

 

Here is the page for the bill: http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1644&ga=109

 

Kinda shocked at this honestly.  Of course, this is still crumbs being thrown to us, but at least there are crumbs, right? (sarcasm) But there are two things I noticed about the actual text. The school, by law, has to chose to allow or not allow (the school "shall devise and implement a handgun carry policy for any property on which the school is located that is owned or operated by the school and for any building or structure located on the school property."). They can not simply avoid the issue like the parks law with regards to cities like Knoxville. So what happens with all the private schools that don't write out a carry/no carry policy? I ask because most private schools (such as my college alma mater) never posted against carry like they were legally required to by state law. So if they don't adopt a for or against policy will carry be legal or illegal? What about preschools that are legally schools but don't seem to fall under this because it says K-12? There are a ton of church preschools that this seems to ignore. 

 

Also, would this be open to lawsuit like the restaurant carry law passed back in 2009? Remember how there was a suite that went in our favor because it was constitutionally vague-which let's be honest, the whole school no carry law is constitutionally suspect. Would this be ripe for a public vs private lawsuit? What about a lawsuit over the fact that it once again gives legislature only power to schools because schools should have to prove that restricting carry should prevent crime.

Seems like small step in the right direction but a huge mess waiting to happen because the lawmakers are doing incremental fixes instead of doing the fixes we really need.

 

[300winmag]

No school is going to just have a policy allowing people to carry handguns and the politicians know that.  Most will revise their present no weapons policies and add in to prohibit people with permits.  You may have a few small schools in very rural areas but those will be the exception.  Basically this is another bill that doesn't change anything and gives these guys brownie points from the NRA so they can say they are 'pro gun'.  The politicians have been unwilling to just give us a clean exception on school property.  I guess this is the best we can get out of the most conservative legislature in the country and a Republican super majority.

[JayC]

Pre-schools in most cases are not schools in and of themselves.  They are officially day care facilities.

[macville]

Pre-schools in most cases are not schools in and of themselves.  They are officially day care facilities.

 

 

Actually, most are considered schools. If you start looking them up you'll find that they are registered as schools with the state. If it's labeled as day care, it's probably not pre-school, But most "pre-schools" are really school and not just day care. At least that's what I found when I started looking at pre-schools in Knox County that are in churches.