Ohio to allow teachers, school staff carry guns

Ohio is set to enact a law that allows teachers and other staff to be armed with guns in schools once they have completed up to 24 hours of initial training.

Proponents hope armed teachers will reduce the frequency and deadliness of school shootings, which have become recurrent in the United States. The bill’s opponents, including teachers’ unions and the state’s main police officer union, say it will only make schools more dangerous for children.

The bill was finalized 10 days after a teenager with an AR-15-style rifle attacked a school in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed in the massacre. read more

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, has said he will sign the bill into law.

The bill was passed by the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly this week. It was designed to defuse a ruling last year by the Ohio Supreme Court that said a longstanding state law required teachers to complete more than 700 hours in a peace-officer training program before they could be armed with a gun on school premises.

Proponents of the bill said it would allow…