GOP delegate seeks to allow any school employee to carry a firearm

Public school boards could allow any school employee to have a gun on their campuses after required training under a bill proposed by Prince William Republican Del. Eric Zehr.

Zehr said the bill, HB 1230, is meant to give school boards a choice to add another layer of protection to their campus in the case of an emergency. He introduced the bill on Jan. 10.

“This additional security option has the potential to transform our school campuses from ‘soft targets’ to harder targets by making would-be attackers guess at who might be armed and able to resist,” Zehr said in a statement.

Among other incidents across the state, there were fatal school shootings at the University of Virginia in 2022 and at Huguenot High School’s graduation in Richmond in 2023.

The bill asks for a one-time cost of $75,000 that would be given to the Department of Criminal Justice Services to develop a training course required for school board members that wish to become authorized firearm holders.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights advocacy group, said the bill would be positive for Virginia schools with more guns on campus. Van Cleave said the law would act as a deterrent.

“Our view is, the more people that we can have legally armed, the better,” Van Cleave said. “So if somebody came in to cause harm, they wouldn’t know who to kill first. Because the air conditioner repairman down the hall could be armed. A teacher could be armed. The administrator could be armed. A visiting parent could be armed. Criminals can be deterred if they think that they’re not going to succeed.”

Van Cleave also said he believed it would make a teacher’s task of protecting their classroom easier by putting themselves in the optimal position to take down a gunman.

“Let me say this, defending a classroom is actually pretty straightforward, and is one of the easiest things to do,” Van Cleave said. “…The bad guy has to come in that door. One way in, one way out for most classrooms. And when he steps in the room, he’s got no idea where anybody is and you know exactly where he is the second [he] steps in the door. So all the teacher has to do is squeeze the trigger.”

Andrew Goddard is the legislative director for the Virginia Center of Public Safety, a gun reform advocacy group,  said that this law would not work as a deterrent because shooters often wear body armor or are suicidal.

“You cannot stop a suicidal person from doing something by threatening to kill them,” Goddard said. “You know, the threat of death for a suicidal person doesn’t exist. So no, there’s no deterrence factor there.”

He also said he worries about how the presence of guns in schools could affect the learning environment for students, fearing that the presence of firearms could put them on edge.

Goddard also said school resource officers are often unable to make a difference when facing a shooter on a school campus so it is unreasonable to put the pressure of defending a classroom on a teacher whose primary focus should be education not defense.

“The idea that teachers, for instance, are going to be concentrating on teaching their class, while at the same time being completely aware of everything is going on outside the classroom, so that they can respond in a moment’s notice to loud bangs or whatever happens that would indicate that there was some sort of problem,” Goddard said. “You can’t do both those things at the same time.”

Goddard’s son was injured in the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 that killed 32 and left 17 wounded, and said from his experience, he doesn’t believe that putting guns into schools would prevent more deaths or injuries.

“Once that kid gets to that school door, we’ve lost, it’s all downhill from there,” Goddard said. “And yet, they will not have anything to do with having bills for safe storage, for making a penalty for an adult who allows a child to gain access to a gun. Any of those things which could prevent the gun shooting in the first place.”

Carol Matthews teaches English at Carver College and Career Academy and said she isn’t in favor of this potential legislation. As a teacher, she is wary of the proposed changes and is not confident in her ability as a teacher to take down an intruder. She also worries that if kept improperly, a child could get access to a firearm.

“A student who is in the midst of an episode where they might not be happy, I can see them grabbing the gun and if every teacher had one, it would be easy access,” Matthews said.

If legislators want the program to be successful, Matthews said she would urge them to include mental health training alongside the required firearm training. Matthews also urged the importance of lawmakers getting opinions and advice from teachers about the topic.

“I hope they will take into account and interview teachers who are actually boots on the ground in the schools to see if that’s a good thing,” Matthews said. “I think sometimes you’ve got people who are not in the classroom that come up with these ideas, but they don’t understand the dynamics of the classroom.”

HB 1230 was referred to the Public Safety Committed on Jan. 10 and later assigned to its Firearms Subcommittee on Jan. 22, where it awaits a hearing.