A recent piece in Education Week draws attention to new efforts to organize educators—teachers, administrators, counselors, school nurses—to stand up and fight back against efforts to put guns into schools and colleges.
Through the grassroots powerhouse Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, educators are tapping into the fights in their states and pushing back against dangerous efforts to put more guns, more places, no questions asked. Educators have opposed dangerous gun bills since even before the mass shooting at Sandy Hook School, but never before have they been organized in this fashion to defeat them.
Right now, guns in K-12 bills have been introduced in 15 states (CO, FL, IN, KY, MD, MN, MO, MT, ND, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV and WY) and guns on campus bills in 14 states (AR, FL, GA, IA, IN, KS, KY, MN, MO, OK, SC, TN, WV and WY).
And our efforts are already seeing success, as lawmakers in Montana defeated a guns in K-12 schools bill and lawmakers in Wyoming rejected a guns on campus bill.
Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, said it best, “Teachers have such an incredibly powerful voice on this issue because they are in the classroom and they really do know what’s best for students.”