Screen Shot 2013-01-10 at 12.28.35 AMCalifornia legislators have responded to the Connecticut shooting of school children by proposing three new gun or ammunition control laws, but and so far simply i beak that specifically deals with school safety.

Country Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance)  is reintroducing Senate Beak 49, hoping it will get treated better this year. It would put some teeth into existing constabulary that requires all schools to accept safety plans. Under the proposed legislation, the state Superintendent of Public Education would hold dorsum funding for a district or canton function of education that has not "essentially complied with the requirement that each of its schools develop a comprehensive safety plan." Districts could also deny a charter school petition if the petition did not include an acceptable safety plan. The neb died in Appropriations last year. This time around, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) has agreed to coauthor it.

Although the vast bulk of schools in California have rubber plans in identify, Lieu believes that some schools do not.

"We're in the procedure right now of trying to determine how many schools in California don't have plans," said Bryan Rex, a Senate staff member in Lieu's office.

Laura Preston, a lobbyist for the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), says though safety plans are necessary, they accept express employ if a school is nether set on by a gunman. She would like to see Lieu's bill amended to provide funds for training for administrators and teachers about what strategies to apply if confronted with someone belongings a gun. This week at San Diego Country Academy, a training that included an actor playing a heavily armed killer roaming dormitory halls was held to better prepare staff and students.

Preston too plans to send out a questionnaire to the members of her organisation well-nigh whether they back up having armed personnel on campus. Several districts, including Los Angeles Unified, have beefed up constabulary patrols since the shooting.

Preston added that she has received calls from the offices of several legislators since the Sandy Hook killings, and so she wouldn't be surprised if more bills regarding schoolhouse safe volition be forthcoming before the Jan. 25 deadline for introducing new bills.

Meanwhile, at least two California teachers are thinking about taking matters into their own hands. Shortly later the shooting, the Buckeye Firearms Association in Delaware, Ohio, offered an Armed Teacher Training Program. More than 600 teachers from 15 states responded, including ii from California, according to Jim Irvine, a spokesman for the association. He said his group would begin offering the free training through the Tactical Defense Institute in West Matrimony, Ohio, for Ohio teachers before moving on to teachers in other states. He would not say where in California the teachers worked. "If nobody knows where they are, they'll have a greater event," he said.

Existing land law is a fleck gray when it comes to whether the right of a person to carry a concealed weapon trumps the state's Gun-Complimentary School Zones Act (Penal Lawmaking 626.ix), said Lynn Lorber, a consultant with the Senate Education Committee. For case, a superintendent could requite a staff fellow member permission to accept a gun as long as it was unloaded and locked in a auto or container. The ammunition, however, could be stored next to it. Districts are immune to be more restrictive regarding guns on their premises, but if a person who works for a school gets permission to carry a curtained weapon, the school district is non notified, Lorber added.

County sheriffs or city chiefs of police decide whether someone has the need to carry a curtained weapon after that person has met other criteria, such as a clean background bank check.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson would take a dim view of whatever thoughts of arming teachers. After the shooting, Torlakson said in a printing release: "In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, information technology'due south disheartening that anyone would call up the respond is to have more guns in and around schools."

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