The Congress of the US state of Ohio has approved authorizing teachers to carry firearms after training that would last a maximum of 24 hours. The text of the Chamber Law 99 does not specify the minimum training period.
The rule approved by the Ohio Congress, controlled by the Republican Party, is optional, so it will be each educational center that decides whether to accept it, according to the Cleveland affiliate of the ABC network.
At least four of the 24 hours of training will be “scenario-based” or simulated training exercises with no specification that real weapons may be used in this “tactical firearms training.”
Users of these weapons will undergo a background check each year.
The law also includes an annual review of training of up to eight hours and the creation of the Ohio Crisis and School Safety Center to develop the training agenda.
Until now, a teacher had to become a peacekeeper with more than 700 hours of training to be able to carry a weapon. A police officer receives 60 hours of training on firearms, of which 46 are in the shooting range.
The law has been definitively approved with 54 Republican votes in favor and 31 Democratic votes and two Republican votes against. Up to twelve congressmen have not voted.
Groups like Mothers for Accountability, Mothers Demand Action, the Ohio Educational Association or the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police have warned that this new law will make schools much less safe.
For the Buckeye Firearms Association it will be the opposite. “We have learned over time that the more quickly an active killer is attacked, the more lives are saved,” said a spokesman for the group, Rob Sexton.
A total of 19 children and two educators died on May 24 in Uvalde, Texas, by the shots of a young man who just turned 18 acquired weapons. The case has reopened the debate on the possession of weapons in the United States.
