EDITORIAL: AAPS Attack on Open Carry Gun Law
WHILE STATE LAW permits open carry of firearms, including onto public school property, the members of the Board of Education, as well as Superintendent Jeanice Kerr Swift, intend to embrace a “no weapons” policy for those on school property. Unless state law is changed, this will put the AAPS policy in opposition with the rights of those gun owners who are lawfully permitted to carry guns onto Ann Arbor public school property.
An open carry law which does not exempt all public school property, including K-12, community colleges and universities, adversely impacts public safety. No one requires a gun to either attend, administer or teach at a public school. No parent or guardian requires a gun to visit the campus of any public school.
State legislators who are members of American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as well as those sympathetic to the legislative agenda of that organization, have used “model legislation” prepared by the group to push a variety of legislation, including controversial stand your ground laws. During the 2011-2012 legislative session, 132 bills based on ALEC models were introduced in the states, including Michigan.
When groups such as ALEC hold sway over public policy, particularly gun laws, and when state legislators, including some in Lansing, look to ALEC for political guidance, it becomes necessary to thwart such advocacy at the local level, regardless of the cost. We applaud the AAPD BOE trustees’ common sense in seeking to ban guns from school property, and the group’s commitment to keeping safe the 16,000 children who attend the AAPS.
And Ann Arbor parents need to take guns into schools to protect themselves from WHAT exactly? This is not about the law, but about common sense. Exercise your rights and realize that open carry is about as helpful in a school as the flu.
How about an active shooter or someone trying to harm themselves or their children?
There haven’t been any incidents in schools?
As of now the children are defenseless, because criminals don’t care if an area is legally dubbed a “gun free zone”. They have a habit of breaking the law.
All this disregarding parents’ legal right does is to make schools vulnerable to bad guys with guns.
This is a ridiculous argument. Allowing guns into schools will allow a potential killer IN, with no way to stop them. No open-carry patriot will be around to protect anyone. They will be going about their day miles away. You cannot tell Adam Lanza from Adam Smith until he starts shooting. Then it’s too late. More unidentified gun carriers showing up will only add to the bullets in the air.
Also, when the police show up, how will they know which gun-toting patriot is the potential killer amongst all the other gun-toting patriots who’ve shown up to save the day? They won’t, and so then the police will also be unwitting targets with no idea which gun-toter is targeting them so they’ll have to kill ALL the gun carriers.
No. A strict NO GUNS ON SCHOOL PROPERTY policy is the only way. So if someone DOES show up with a gun, the school will know that person is up to no good and not be forced to wait til he starts shooting to act.
No one is required to exercise free speech,
No one is required to vote.
No one is required to not agree to search and seizure
However, Michigan law does allow parents with a CPL to be able to protect themselves and their children with a firearm if they CHOSE to do so.
The school policy is in direct conflict with state law. State law wins.