Alabama legislative leaders hesitant on post-Parkland gun bills

After an assailant shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, Alabama legislators filed two bills, one after the other.

HB 434, sponsored by Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, would ban the sale of most semiautomatic weapons to people under 21. HB 435, from Rep. Will Ainsworth, R-Guntersville, would allow trained teachers to carry firearms in schools.

Each bill reflects a reaction to the attacks and a national reaction that has rewritten the normal political script for mass shootings. But they’re also going through a legislature that could wrap up its session in about a month. Leaders appear reluctant to push through any sweeping gun bill in that time frame.

“What I hope to see is what we’re seeing around the county with people sitting down and discussing these issues, and make a determination of what is the best path to go,” said Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, on Thursday.

That’s not to say the Legislature isn’t considering any gun legislation. The House of Representatives on Feb. 15 approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Lynn Greer, R-Rogersville, that would explicitly extend the state’s Stand Your Ground law to churches. Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, has sponsored a bill supported by the National Rifle Association that would repeal permit requirements to carry firearms.

For the most part, the Legislature has avoided any thought of gun restrictions or broader efforts to address Alabama’s high number of gun deaths.

In 2016, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alabama had 21.5 deaths by firearm per 100,000 population — the second highest rate in the nation per capita, only lagging Alaska. The state experienced over 1,046 deaths by firearm that year, 146 more than the state of New York, which has four times the population of Alabama.

The vast majority of suicides in Alabama involve guns. Firearms accounted for 67 percent of such suicides in 2014 and more than 70 percent in 2015, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Nationwide, firearms made up 49.8 percent of suicides in 2015.

But among legislative leaders, there seems to be an unwillingness to take up more bills dealing with firearms, whether generally or in schools.

“The worst thing we can do is to pass a knee-jerk reaction bill to say ‘We did something,’” said Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles firearm legislation. “You got to debate and consider everything.”

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, who came out in opposition to Ainsworth’s bill Thursday, said he did not expect anything major to move in the session.

“It’s very difficult to move things in both bodies in general,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to really think it through as we move on.”

Armed teachers

Ainsworth’s legislation has drawn the most comment and controversy. The bill would allow teachers and administrators to carry pistols in class, under certain conditions. The individual would need a permit and have to go through 40 hours of law enforcement training and requalify for firearm training each year.

The district would have to keep a confidential record of armed teachers in their schools, but the bill does not require approval from a school board, administrator or superintendent for the armed teacher to enter the school. The teacher would have to supply their own gun and ammunition.

"I don’t think law enforcement can handle every need," Ainsworth said in an interview Saturday, citing a school resource officer who failed to enter Mallory Stoneman Douglas High Schools. "I think it’s not possible for them to be everywhere."

The bill has 33 co-sponsors — including three Democrats — and Ainsworth says teachers and coaches he has spoken to have been open to the possibility. But the bill has also provoked a strong reaction from opponents and made legislative leaders wary. Opponents cite many issues, including the already-full load of responsibilities teachers bear; the liability issues that emerge with armed teachers and — in the event of a school shooting — the possibility of law enforcement confusing an armed teacher for a hostile actor.

“The real problem is the teacher’s primary job is teaching students, and taking care of students,” said Eric Mackey, the director of the Schools Superintendents of Alabama. “In a crisis, they’re going have to be helping students, moving students, and sheltering in place. To have an additional duty of then becoming a law enforcement officer would put a teacher in a difficult position.”

Mackey also cited the lack of oversight for administrators and school boards. Ainsworth said he planned to meet with the Alabama Association of School Boards Monday to discuss the issue.

An email seeking comment was sent to Gene Newman, the NRA’s senior field representative for Alabama and Mississippi, on Friday. Similar bills have appeared in other states in the wake of the Parkland shooting, and President Donald Trump has expressed some public support for the idea.

Many schools have school resource officers, law enforcement officials who go through training on law enforcement techniques and learning the particular cultures of the schools in which they work.

Pam Revels, a Lee County Deputy Sheriff and president of The Alabama Association of School Resource Officers, said Friday SROs, who carry firearms, get trained to keep campuses safe and also to build relationships with students that help identify potential threats, and prevent them.

Revels said arming teachers was “a tremendous responsibility to put on the shoulders of our educators,” and said an SRO would be a benefit in that situation.

“That SRO can be working throughout the day to do prevention, rather than just reaction,” she said. “While those teachers are teaching, that SRO can be working on threats to identify, recognize, and be aware, and possibly prevent. You can’t do that if your focus is on something else.”

Anne Leader, the Alabama volunteer chapter leader for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said that improving a system of background checks, promoting safe gun storage and making it easier for courts to prevent people who may pose a threat from having firearms might be more effective. She also raised concerns about the unintended consequences of the bill citing as an example an armed teacher who might be 5’3”.

“If a student knows I’m carrying a gun, what to say a six-foot student isn’t going easily overpower me because I’m small?” she said. “Especially if my back’s turned and I’m writing on the chalkboard?”

Ainsworth said trained teachers would learn to secure their firearms, and that law enforcement would be supplied with pictures of teachers to know which were armed in a crisis situation. He said he supported increased funding for school security in the 2019 education budget, which legislators are considering.

"This is voluntary," he said. "In my mind, probably five to 10 percent of the administrators would be all that would carry."

House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, was reluctant to commit Thursday to any specific timetable for Ainsworth’s bill. A retired law enforcement officer, McCutcheon said there was more to firearms than knowing how to fire them.

“It’s the ‘shoot, don’t shoot’ aspect,” he said. “It’s the mental capacity to make those decisions. Being identified through the law enforcement community that will be responding. The safety of the children. All of these are things we need to be discussing and debating.”

Age limits

While a person needs to be 21 to buy a pistol, the age limit is 18 for rifles and shotguns. Givan’s bill would make it a Class B felony — punishable by up to 20 years in prison — to sell a person under the age of 21 most semi-automatic weapons or conversion kits, and a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person under the age of 21 to possess such weapons. Givan’s bill refers to those sorts of firearms as assault weapons, a term that broadly refers to semi-automatic firearms with large magazines.

“I think it will serve as a deterrent,” Givan said Thursday. “It’s inconceivable someone can purchase an assault weapon anywhere in this country at 18, but you can’t purchase a handgun until you’re 21 years of age.”

Similar measures are being considered in other states, like Florida, and legislators seemed open to the idea, if not committed to it.

“I’m trying to keep an open mind and not overreact emotionally,” said Rep. Steve McMillan, R-Bay Minette. “I really think it’s time to look at the AR-15 situation and those types of guns.”

The phrase “assault weapons” might hurt the bill’s prospects with Republicans. Leader, who said Givan’s “well-intentioned” bill “sends a message about the culture of violence we have,” also said the phrase may not be effective.

“The problem with that kind of pursuit is that the gun industry will redesign the gun and call it something else,” she said. “While I think it sends a good cultural message, I don’t think it cures the problems.”

Any other restrictions on firearms seem unlikely in a Legislature where Republicans command supermajorities in both chambers.

“You discuss and debate anything,” Ward said. “I think there’s going to be a reluctance to ban AR-15s in general, because next it’s going to be a pistol. I don’t know where you draw the line.”

Givan said even if her bill failed to pass, she hoped it started a conversation.

“We won’t pass a bill to save a life?” she said. “To prevent someone from being slaughtered, gunned down and killed by an assailant? That’s ridiculous.”