Indiana looks to again require firearms training for teachers who carry

(The Center Square) – The Indiana State Senate is trying once again to pass a bill that would require teachers who carry guns in school to pass a psychological exam and 40 hours of firearms training.

Sen. Travis Holdman, R- Markle, introduced the bill in the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development.

“We passed legislation that allowed guns in the schools years ago, but we have never passed legislation saying if you carry a gun, you’ve gotta be trained,” he said.

Under current state law, if approved by a school board, teachers are allowed to carry a gun on their person and schools are allowed to have guns in the school for the protection of children and staff.

Holdman’s bill, SB 64, says that before an employee of a school corporation, charter school or nonpublic school carries a firearm into or on school property, he or she must successfully complete a psychological exam called the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory 2 – or MMPI-II – and provide the results to the school board.

The school employees must also have “specialized weapons training” that is approved by the school board and that includes very specific elements, including three-and-a-half hours of instruction from an attorney on the legal responsibilities involved in the “lawful use of force to protect a person” and one hour of instruction by a mental health professional on identifying “aberrant behavior” and pre-indicators of violence.” It also includes training on the safe handling of weapons and “proper draw stroke” in addition to “defending a weapon and retention of a weapon” and also one hour of first aid, including treating shock and applying a tourniquet to stop bleeding.

Only a handful of school corporations in Indiana have authorized teachers or other school employees to have guns in schools, and all of them require firearms training, according to Holdman, saying he doesn’t know of any school corporations that require less training than is outlined in SB 64, or any that don’t require a psychological exam, intended to measure a person’s ability to act under pressure.

The bill also requires school employees who carry or are authorized to use guns in schools to do 16 hours of firearms training each year, and sets up a state fund that schools can use to cover the cost of training and also purchase of firearms.

A school superintendent appeared before the committee to talk about how his school corporation made the decision three years ago to allow school staff to have access to guns.

Jeremy Gulley, the superintendent of the Jay School Corporation in northeast Indiana, said the guns they have are kept in biometric safes located in “strategic locations” in the schools – with only a select few employees having access.

“We need the capability to defend innocent life,” he told the senators, explaining that he manages a rural school district that is the fifth-largest by geographical area, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to get to a school in a timely manner in the event of a school shooting.

“What is the average response time in a rural county? It is over by the time they get there,” he said.

When asked by a Democratic senator whether it wouldn’t be better to have a police officer in each school, he said this isn’t something the school corporation can afford.

“It would be great if we could, but we cannot,” he said.

This is the third year a bill to require training for school staff carrying guns has been considered by the Indiana Senate.

A similar bill passed the Senate in 2019 and again in 2020 but died in the Indiana House of Representatives when some members objected to the training requirement.

“I’ll just say it. We’ve run into issues with the NRA, to be quite honest with you,” said Holdman when asked by the committee chairman, Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, about the history of the bill. “I was told last year that they oppose any training requirement for anybody who carries a weapon…We require police officers to be trained to carry a weapon. Why would we not require school staff that are around our kids to be trained to carry a weapon? It’s just common sense, in my book.”

SB 64 is expected to be debated in committee again next week or the week after, and to then be sent to the full Senate for a vote.

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