New legislation would let local districts hire armed marshals, who would not need to be police officers, to patrol public schools

Hours after authorities say a 15-year-old student shot and killed two classmates at a western Kentucky high school, a Republican senator in the state’s Capitol rushed to file a bill intended to prevent future tragedies – by putting more guns in schools.

The legislation from state Senator Steve West would let local districts hire armed marshals to patrol public schools, make citizen’s arrests and protect people from “imminent death or serious physical injury”. Marshals would not have to be police officers, but school district employees in good standing who have a license to carry concealed weapons.

“I’m going to be beating the drum again. We had this shooting this week. If we do what we did last time and nothing is done, this will come back again,” West said of Tuesday’s violence.

His is one of at least two bills that would allow more guns into Kentucky’s public schools and on college campuses. They reflect sentiments that have found bipartisan support in a conservative state whose politicians routinely pose in ads with guns, and where the National Rifle Association held its 2016 national convention. The NRA has an outsized influence in many state elections and the resulting gun policy debates in those legislatures.

Q&A Why is the National Rifle Association so powerful? Show Hide It’s not (just) about the money. In 2017, the NRA spent at least $4.1m on lobbying – more than the $3.1m it spent in all of 2016. But for comparison, the dairy industry has spent $4.4m in the same period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The National Association of Realtors, one of the biggest spenders, has paid out $32.2m lobbying on housing issues. The NRA has plenty of cash to spend. It bet big on the 2016 US elections, pouring $14.4m into supporting 44 candidates who won and $34.4m opposing 19 candidates who lost, according to CRP. But “the real source of its power, I believe, comes from voters,” said Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor of constitutional law. The 145-year-old organization claims 5 million active members, that number is disputed, but whatever its actual size, membership is a powerful tool, said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland. “They have a very powerful ability to mobilize a grassroots support and to engage in politics when most Americans can barely be bothered to vote,” he said. “And because so few Americans do those things, if you get a bunch of people in a locality who are all prepared to go out to a meeting they can have a big effect." Read more Photograph: Mark Humphrey/AP

“You know, we’re in Kentucky,” said Ralph Alvarado, a Republican state senator and medical doctor who co-sponsored West’s legislation. “This debate always comes up, restricting gun use in the state. I’m just adamantly opposed to it. It’s a constitutional right that we have. It’s one of those things that it’s going to be tough to ever get that kind of a concept through.”

Some Democrats think the GOP push for more guns in schools is misplaced. State Representative Attica Scott from Louisville has filed legislation that would ban those convicted of hate crimes from carrying a gun and let local governments pass laws requiring gun sellers to use “responsible business practices”.

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“We are training our babies how to react when faced with an active shooter, but we are not taking action on gun safety,” Scott said. “We are sending prayers and thoughts to kids who are clinging to the last bit of faith they have in the system of government that is supposed to keep them safe.”

And Democratic Representative Jim Wayne of Louisville has filed a bill that would make it a crime for adults to “recklessly” store a gun without a trigger lock, a measure aimed at preventing children and teenagers from having access to their parents’ guns.

“We don’t know if the perpetrator (in Marshall County) had a gun that was maybe stored properly or had a gun lock on it he was able to disengage,” Wayne said. “Regardless, we had a child shooting children. If we can do anything to protect one life of one child, that is what we need to do as a body.”

The shooting Tuesday at Marshall County High School left two students dead, 14 wounded by gunfire and others injured in the rush to escape the violence.

As school shootings become more commonplace, debates are raging in Kentucky and state legislatures nationwide about how to prevent them. Some pursue laws that would make it harder for teenagers and others to buy guns and bring them onto school grounds. Others, including some Democrats, want to increase the number of people allowed to carry guns in schools, believing that will deter shootings from starting and quickly stop the ones that do.

“We need armed officers in every school in Kentucky. That is a small price to pay if it saves one child’s life,” Kentucky Democratic state Senator Ray Jones said.

Similar bills have been filed in Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.