SB 229 diminishes student safety

It’s hard for me to politely discuss the fact that the Indiana House passed a bill — by a margin of 74-24, no less — allowing people to keep guns in cars on school property.
All I can say is no. Indiana Senate Bill 229 is wrong.

People should not be allowed to have guns on school property. They shouldn’t be allowed to bring them into the school, and they shouldn’t be allowed to keep them on school grounds, whether or not they’re locked up — apparently safely — in someone’s car.

A 2006 study found a considerable portion of adult gun owners with minors in their homes do not safely store their firearms. Trusting these same adults to safely store their guns in their cars seems like a bit of a reach.

Advocates of SB 229 say parents should not face the possibility of committing a felony by dropping off their kids at school or attending school functions while a gun is in their car.

The answer is painfully obvious.

Don’t put your gun in your car when you take your kids to school. Or simply, don’t keep your gun in your car.

There shouldn’t be a law designed specifically for parents too lazy to remove a deadly firearm from their vehicle before they’re going to be near a school. That’s like creating a law that makes it legal for minors to drive with open alcohol containers as long as they stay in the backseat. You’re not solving any problems, you’re just giving people the opportunity to make excuses. 

Supporters of the bill also say it continues to prohibit students from keeping firearms in their cars. That is, unless the student has permission from the principal and is a member of a school gun club.

Maybe I just didn’t grow up in the right school district, but somebody please tell me if your public school had a gun club. I guess I was too busy with show choir to participate in gun club.

More likely, my school administration wasn’t idiotic enough to allow an
organized student gun club. If parents or guardians wish to teach their children proper gun handling, safety and technique outside of an educational environment, that is a parental right I would never dream to squander.

But there’s no reason an adult needs to bring that same gun to school and leave it in their car.

Not when in 2011, 5 percent of high school students carried a gun on school grounds and 7 percent were threatened or injured by some sort of weapon. There’s absolutely no reason to raise those odds.

Indiana students deserve the right to feel safe. Safety is in no way, shape or form the chance of a gun in any number of cars in a school parking lot.

wdmcdona@indiana.edu
@thedevilwearsdm