‘Many, many’ Texas teachers seek to carry guns in schools, Tarrant County sheriff says
Many Texas teachers are becoming qualified to carry firearms in schools in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting, according to Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn.
Waybourn was part of a panel of politicians on Tuesday who spoke at an America First Policy Institute summit in Washington, D.C. He joined Congressman Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt during a panel called, “Provide Safe and Secure Communities So All Americans Can Live Their Lives in Peace.” Pam Bondi and Matthew Whitaker led the session. Donald Trump was scheduled to speak at the summit Tuesday afternoon.
Bondi asked the panelists about various topics on policing and crime in the U.S.. She asked Waybourn what he thought needed to be done in schools in the wake of the deadly shooting in Uvalde. Waybourn apologized on behalf of Texas for the “epic failure of law enforcement in Uvalde.”
Waybourn said schools must be “hardened” to protect kids from shooters, mirroring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for action to better secure schools from potential shooters.
To protect schools, Waybourn said, schools need “a good guy with a gun ready to go,” whether that person is a police officer or a “well-trained vetted staff member in that school.”
“And in Texas, many, many teachers are out qualifying today as we speak,” Waybourn said. “And they’re getting ready to go.”
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to questions about where Waybourn received his information on teachers increasingly becoming qualified to carry guns in school.
In Texas, school staff can carry firearms in schools as part of the School Marshal program. Through the program, a school district applies for qualification and, if accepted, sends their selected candidate to an 80-hour training course. Across the state, 62 school districts were qualified through the program for a total of 256 school marshals as of May, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement spokeswoman Gretchen Grigsby told the Dallas Morning News. The names of the districts and marshals are confidential.
Texas has more than 1,200 school districts, including charter schools.
Texas also allows staff to carry guns on campus through the Guardian Plan. Under the authority of the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Texas Penal Code, school districts can grant written permission for designated employees to carry firearms on campus.
Texas politicians, such as Attorney General Ken Paxton, have urged schools to arm teachers in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in May.
Other school districts, including the Fort Worth school district, want politicians to focus on gun laws. On July 12, the Fort Worth school board asked Abbott to call for a special legislative session to pass “common sense” gun law policies to protect students from mass shootings.
The America First Policy Institute is a nonprofit organization focused on a policy agenda for Republican leaders.
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 3:28 PM.
