Georgia Lawmakers: "K-12 Disarmament A-Okay" © 2022 Phillip Evans

Trusting anti-self-defense local school boards to decide whether or not to arm volunteer teachers and staff to protect K-12 school children from mass shooters, is tantamount to stating that you are A-Okay with helpless, sitting ducks.

Sitting Ducks

Photo by Jon Kolbert

That's exactly what our "pro-Second Amendment" Georgia General Assembly lawmakers are saying. Oh sure, they've finally removed the Jim Crow license requirement to carry a pistol in public, but they've left in place numerous off-limits places where they make sure you'll be punished just for carrying a pistol for self-defense where they say you can't. Never mind that criminals carry in those places anyway.

These Jim Crow laws were put in place when Democrats had lawmaking control in Georgia. Off-limit carry prohibitions such as churches, K-12 schools, and polling places were placed into law by White Democrats who didn't want Blacks gathering together to protest for equal rights while armed, much less to protect themselves in public.

Many Republican lawmakers actually do believe it takes a good guy/gal with a gun to stop a bad one with a gun.

But they have a logic disconnect when it comes to K-12 schools (all the off-limits places, actually).

They've turned common sense upside down by refusing to let the good guys/gals even be armed in the first place to be able to shoot back. They need to let go of these Jim Crow laws!

It's so rare for a school board to allow teachers and staff to be armed, that it makes news whenever it happens, such as with Laurens County back in 2018, in response to the Parkland, Florida school massacre.

Because of the recent Uvalde, Texas school massacre, Laurens County is back in the news again, to let everyone know they still have their program arming teachers and staff, to be a warning to would-be shooters that might target their schools.

Fannin County, Georgia was the second school district to arm teachers and staff in 2018 in response to Parkland.

Georgia has 159 counties, and only two small rural counties have used their state-given authority to protect their children. 

How's that for falling back on trusting school boards to make this life or death decision? Lawmakers KNOW school boards won't do it, with rare exception.

Our lawmakers seem to be content with this strategy. It's politically soothing for them - this pass the buck mentality.

They fear the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), a teachers union which opposes armed self-defense in schools.

I wonder if victims of murdered children would be soothed knowing our lawmakers had their hands tied with this fear. Some consolation, huh?

The irony is that those union members and officials don't vote for Republicans anyway, so why are they sitting back doing nothing to further liberty, in order to appease them?

Perhaps like former Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, they have "no appetite" to further remove the shackles from liberty for law-abiding citizens, that we should just shut up and be happy with what we've got.

They need to step up to the Leadership Plate and repeal the law that makes it a crime to be armed for self-defense in K-12 schools, at the very least for those who've been vetted and received a license to carry.

I trust an armed citizen in a K-12 school far more to protect children, than I do most local school boards. Our lawmakers should too.

Do you want to see greater self-defense liberty in Georgia? Join GA2A (formerly Georgia Carry). I've been a member since 2010. This article was not written on behalf of GA2A, but is my own personal work.