CA Senate Takes Up Bill Ensuring Teachers Cannot Shoot Back

California’s Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up AB 424 — also known as SB 707 — early next week, as Senate Democrats consider Assemblyman Kevin McCarty’s (D-Sacramento) push to ensure teachers cannot shoot back if under attack.

The current law in California bars K-12 teachers with concealed carry permits from carrying on campus for self-defense unless they are given permission by their school districts. Five districts have chosen to allow teachers to be armed for self-defense. Those districts are Kern High School District, Kingsburg Joint Union High School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District, Anderson Union High School District, and Palo Cedro’s North Cow Creek School District.

McCarthy’s bill is designed to repeal school districts’ authority to allow teachers with permits to carry, thereby guaranteeing the teachers will not be able to shoot back should a Sandy Hook-style attack unfold.

California’s Assembly passed McCarty’s bill on June 19, sending it to the Senate where it has already passed the Committee on Public Safety. It was opposed by both of the Republicans on the Public Safety Committee — Sens. Jeff Stone (Riverside) and Joel Anderson (Alpine)—but Democrats outnumber them by a margin of five to two.

McCarty’s bill will be taken up by the Appropriations Committee on July 10, when Democrats will once again have the opportunity to vote to be sure teachers cannot shoot back if under attack.

On May 12, Gun Owners of California’s Sam Peredes told Breitbart News that the exemption to allow teachers to conceal carry — with district permission — was more or less a token exemption. He said Democrat lawmakers did not expect districts to actually allow teachers to carry guns for defense of themselves and their students.

Peredes added, “Well, out of the one thousand school districts in California, five of them decided to allow concealed permit holders to carry on their campuses. That so ticked off the legislature that now they are going to take away the authority of even administrators to allow CCW holders to carry on their campuses.”

Bakersfield.com reports that McCarty views disarming teachers a part of “closing a loophole in the Gun Free School Zone Act.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.