Discussion about arming school personnel continues

In the wake of this month’s mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, Congressional Democrats and others have been pushing for tighter restrictions on guns. However, local lawmakers say not to expect any similar efforts in the Wyoming Legislature’s next session.

“I don’t think there’s any question there’ll be gun bills, but I don’t think they’ll be geared towards gun control,” state Rep. Sam Krone, R-Cody, said in a recent appearance on KODI-AM’s “Speak Your Piece.”

“I think it’ll be more (about) guns in schools and how to protect students,” Krone said. “I think we’ll probably see bills along those lines.”

Sen. Hank Coe, R-Cody, and Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell, expressed similar thoughts in the lawmakers’ joint June 16 appearance on “Speak Your Piece.”

Coe quoted the saying that, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

“The shooter in Orlando, you know, what a tragedy. I mean, awful stuff,” Coe said, but “I can tell you any type of restrictions, if he really wants it bad enough ...”

“He’ll find it,” interjected Northrup.

“... He’ll go out in the black market and figure out a way to get what he wants,” Coe finished.

The man who attacked the Orlando nightclub on June 12 — leaving 49 people dead and 53 injured — legally purchased the AR-15 style weapon he used in the attack. Media outlets have reported the FBI investigated the shooter for links to terrorism twice in the past and cleared him both times.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives staged a sit-in protest last week demanding a vote on bills that would have required expanded background checks on firearm purchases and ban gun sales to people on the federal government’s no-fly list.

“People all over America and around the world are supporting our efforts to do something about gun violence,” U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., told The Atlantic after the sit-in.

Park County Democratic Party Chairman Mike Specht said in a June 15 appearance on “Speak Your Piece” that he saw the attack at the gay nightclub as “more of a hate crime.”

“It’s time that we all start coming together, and everybody — from the NRA to the far left — we start sitting down and looking at things that will actually work on reducing not just gun crime but violence in America,” Specht said.

He expressed support for banning gun sales to people on the government’s no-fly list.

“Maybe this will get people woke up and hey, if you are on the no-fly list and if you are being investigated or have been investigated as a radical jihadist, radical Islamist, whatever you want to call it, then maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to walk in and buy a gun,” Specht said.

“Boy, that would be a tough one not to agree with,” offered “Speak Your Piece” host Darian Dudrick.

However, some remain wary of new restrictions on gun rights as a general principle.

In a June 14 appearance on the program, Big Horn Basin TEA Party co-founder Rob DiLorenzo accused the “progressives” pushing for gun control as having ulterior motives.

“They know full well that any assault weapons ban, any restrictions on firearms, will do absolutely no good at all; they know that,” DiLorenzo charged on KODI’s broadcast. “The motive is not to prevent these incidents. The motive is a disarmed public ... because once the public is disarmed, they become sheep, and once they become sheep, they can institute anything they want.”

He later added that the “progressive, leftist, Marxist” people “don’t give a damn about Orlando, what’s going on. It’s an excuse.”

Meanwhile, Coe and Northrup — the co-chairmen of the Legislature’s education committee —  indicated the top gun-related legislation on their list is finding a way to arm certain school personnel, particularly in rural areas.

“These schools could be 30 minutes away from having a sheriff nearby. ... That’s a long time when stuff starts to happen,” Northrup said on “Speak Your Piece.”

To get a more immediate response to a shooter, “we would like to see the janitor or the principal or somebody that is qualified to be able to do that job — and (who) has some training,” he said.

Northrup, who’s a former Powell school board member, said he’d want each individual school district to decide whether they want to have an armed employee.

Coe said he and Northrup each wanted to have the education committee study the topic of guns in schools this year, but were turned down by the Legislature’s Management Council.

“I’m disappointed and David (Northrup)’s disappointed, but that’s the way it is,” Coe said.