Wisconsin AG Brad Schimel says he'd train gun-carrying teachers if state law allowed it

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel suggested Tuesday that local school districts should have the option of arming teachers and said his office would provide gun training to school staff if lawmakers agreed to allow it.

"Law-abiding gun owners don’t go out and shoot up schools," Schimel said Tuesday in an interview on WTMJ-620 AM, less than a week after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. History.

"When you make a school a gun-free school zone, the only person that you’re stopping is the law-abiding gun owner that doesn’t want to get in trouble.”

Nikolas Cruz, 19, who is charged with murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last week, bought an AR-15-style rifle used in the attack legally, according to federal authorities.

Josh Kaul, Schimel's Democratic opponent for attorney general, and the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now, blasted Schimel's remarks.

“It’s alarming that anyone — let alone our AG — would think arming teachers is a good idea," Kaul said. "Let’s be clear: We need common-sense gun-safety measures, and that includes keeping our gun-free school zones. I want to make sure that police officers can act when they see someone with a gun standing next to a school," he said.

"We're not going to keep guns out of schools by putting guns in schools," said Joanna Beilman-Dulin, research director of One Wisconsin Now, who accused Schimel of opening his door to the National Rifle Association's lobbyist on his second day in office.

State and federal laws bar firearms in schools, but the federal Gun-Free Zones Act does not apply to individuals licensed by states to carry a handgun.

Schimel said Tuesday that local school districts, not the state, should decide whether to allow firearms in schools. And he suggested arming teachers would save lives.

"As soon as (school shooters) see a law enforcement officer or some other person pointing a weapon at them, they usually turn the gun on themselves or they surrender," Schimel said. "So the quicker we get someone in there to confront them the better off, the more lives we can save. "

Lawmakers are in the waning days of the legislative session, which is expected to wrap up in the next week. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) on Tuesday did not rule out taking up such a proposal if it were floated.

Vos said other gun-related measures, including Democratic proposals to tighten regulations and a Republican bill to loosen concealed carry rules, are unlikely to become law before lawmakers head home.

"The proposals have not generated the broad support I’d like to see," Vos said.

Republicans had proposed a bill, supported by the National Rifle Association and other firearms advocates, that would have allowed individuals to carry concealed guns without getting training or state permits, and in some cases bring them onto school grounds.

Also, on Monday, Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) began circulating for signatures an 11th-hour bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in private schools and reducing the penalty for carrying a weapon on public school grounds to a Class B forfeiture.

Democrats had proposed three bills that would have required universal background checks for firearms, barred those convicted of domestic violence from buying firearms and banned the sale of so-called bump stocks that effectively turn semi-automatic weapons into machine guns.

Assembly Democrats on Tuesday sought to force a floor vote on the background check bill. At deadline, Republicans were seeking to strip the bill of its background check provisions and replace those with several other provisions, including grants to schools to hire armed police guards.

Also Tuesday, the state Senate on a voice vote approved Senate Bill 408, which would make it a felony to buy a gun with the intention of passing it on to someone who is barred from possessing a firearm. Police officials in Milwaukee have complained that some people have repeatedly engaged in making such straw purchases but can’t be barred from buying firearms because the practice is a misdemeanor, not a felony.

The bill would also require a minimum sentence of four years in prison for those who commit gun crimes if in the previous five years they had been convicted of one felony or three misdemeanors.

The bill heads to the Assembly, where its fate is uncertain.

Moved by the massacre in Florida and the outrage that is building among young people across the country, a group of Madison high school students joined Democrats in the Capitol on Tuesday to push for the gun-control measures.

"Since kindergarten I have been learning how to sit under a desk and be silent so that a shooter doesn't hurt us. This is not something that a 5-year-old should have to think about," Lydia Hester of Madison said.

Annabel Stattelman-Scanlan, a junior at Madison East High School, rejected Schimel's call to consider allowing schools to let teachers be armed. The country should be looking at how to prevent school shootings from happening at all rather than how to hold down casualties, she said.

"By allowing guns in schools, you are taking the focus off prevention," she said. "We need to be looking at the cause of these problems and not just minimizing the effects."

For his part, Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) said an armed officer at the Florida high school hadn't stopped the gunman. He said Democrats were only pushing gun regulations with broad public support.

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Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the nonprofit Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, said an overwhelming majority of Americans, including Wisconsinites, favor gun control, and that any bill that makes it easier to bring firearms into schools would be going in the wrong direction.

"We want to do everything we can to keep guns out of schools, especially if we listen to the voices of students," Bonavia said. "They are begging adults to address this problem. The last thing students want is more guns in schools."

Jason Stein and Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.