Tennessee passed a bill to arm teachers. This mom says it won’t keep her son safe

Sarah Shoop Neumann doesn’t like the idea of sending her six-year-old son to school, knowing that his teacher might have a gun.

Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, while barring parents and other teachers from knowing who is armed.

The bill’s supporters say it’s a deterrent for would-be school shooters. But Neumann, whose son’s Nashville school was targeted by a shooter last year, says too many things could go wrong.

“Is that teacher going to accidentally leave that gun in a bathroom and it gets found by a child?” Neumann told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. 

“There’s just a lot of chance for misfire and accidental harm that could come from them carrying guns in the classroom.”

What does the bill do?

The bill was approved in a 68-28 vote in the Republican-dominated legislature, and now heads to Gov. Bill Lee to sign into law. The state’s Senate passed the bill earlier this month.

“What you’re doing is you’re creating a deterrent,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. “Across our state, we have had challenges as it relates to shootings.”

Under the legislation, a school staff member who wants to carry a handgun would need to have a handgun carry permit and written authorization from the school’s principal and local law enforcement. They would also need to clear a background check and undergo 40 hours of handgun training, at their own cost.

The bill bars disclosing which employees are carrying guns beyond school administrators and police, including to students’ parents and even other teachers.

Neuman says she appreciates the checks and balances in the legislation, and agrees that more security is needed at schools. 

“It’s the ‘who’ in his bill that I have issue with,” she said. “We can’t be putting this burden on our classroom teachers that have direct student responsibility. There’s too much else that they would need to do in an active shooter situation.”

The law does not mandate that teachers be armed, and at least one school district has already said it has no intention of taking advantage of the legislation. 

“It is best and safest for only approved active-duty law enforcement to carry weapons on campus,” Metro Nashville Public School spokesperson Sean Braisted told The Associated Press.

About half of all states in the U.S. allow teachers or other school employees to carry firearms on school grounds, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun safety group.

Protesters and Democrats make noise

Neumann is not alone in her concerns. Protesters — including parents and students — gathered at the legislature on Tuesday to oppose the bill.

After it passed, they chanted “Blood on your hands” at Republican legislators, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.

Republicans rejected a series of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed, and the school district assuming civil liability for any injury, damage or death due to staff carrying guns.

“My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said. “It is morally insane.”

The House voted to reprimand Jones for recording on his phone in the legislature. He was barred from speaking on the floor through Wednesday.

Nashville mass shooting

The legislation comes just over a year after a shooter opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023, killing three children and three adults before being killed by police.

Since then, Republican lawmakers have dismissed several gun control proposals, including measures proposed by their own governor in the shooting’s aftermath. 

Shortly after the shooting, Tennessee Republicans passed a law strengthening protections against lawsuits involving gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers.

Neumann has been advocating for gun control in Tennessee ever since the shooting.

Her son was attending pre-Kindergarten three days a week at Covenant at the time. He was off the day of the shooting, but was briefly at the reunification centre with his parents as they supported friends waiting to find out if their children were safe. 

“So while yes, it’s been a challenging time, I feel like we were spared greatly from what many of our friends and others went through,” she said. “That’s why I feel like I have the bandwidth to do more advocacy work.”

While Tennessee Republicans have advanced pending legislation to restrict gun rights for some criminal offenders, they have regularly loosened firearms over the years. 

A 2013 law allows gun owners to store loaded guns in their cars. That was later updated to include campus parking lots. A 2021 law allowed residents 21 and older to carry handguns in public without a permit. Two years later, that eligibility was extended to 18- to 20-year-olds.

“You can just see every little bit of safety that we had in place around firearms has just been chipped away at,” Neumann said. 

“It’s that slow process that’s got us where we are. And we’ve just got to start chiselling back away at it the other way and putting these safeguards back in place.”

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters. Interview with Sarah Shoop Neumann produced by Chris Harbord