Legislation to allow teachers in Louisiana to conceal carry moves forward

BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) — Big changes have been made to a controversial bill in the state legislature.

House Bill 37 was originally geared to allow permitless concealed carry to certain individuals in the state. Now, it’s to allow teachers and school staff to conceal carry weapons in the classroom.

“With the recent situation shooting in Texas and other instances I saw this as an opportunity to maybe have some school safety,” said State Senator Eddie Lambert.

“They have to have a concealed carry permit and be trained with that. In addition, they have to submit a written application to the school board saying they want to do this,” he added.

Senator Lambert says this would be completely voluntary, and calls those who take part “school protection officers.” He says in addition to the school resource officer, it would be beneficial to have another trained individual to be on campus in case of an incident.

“If I’m in school it makes me feel a little safer knowing there’s not only one, but maybe two or three people, that are qualified to react to the situation,” said the senator.

Principal Virgil Tiller disagrees.

“We already have to deal with in schools discipline and culture and redirecting our scholars,” said Tiller.
I don’t think having a weapon is a tool to be able to protect our kids or to make them feel safe.”

He says teachers and staff are already under a lot of stress.

“If you asked a police officer if they would love teaching eight hours a day and do their regular NOPD job, a lot of them wouldn’t want to do it.”

Tiller says there are other avenues to go down to ensure school safety.

“Look at the gun laws for the ordinary citizen and how that applied to going into a school building,” said Tiller.

The fate of the bill will be known by Monday.