Public comments on proposed concealed carry policy

TEN SLEEP – Public and task force members spoke out Monday regarding allowing Ten Sleep School staff members to possess firearms.

Monday evening during the February Ten Sleep School Board meeting, the board heard from gun policy task force members, school attorney Scott Kolpitcke, Washakie County Sheriff Steve Rakness and community members about the proposed firearm policy. The policy was created by a task force consisting of parents, community members and school employees in accordance with Wyoming Statute 21-3-132 giving the board of trustees the option to adopt rules and regulations allowing employees to possess firearms on campus.

Gun policy task force members Megan Greet and Ten Sleep School teacher Brian

Titus began the discussion by explaining to the board and all present what they did, how they did it, why they did what they did and the resources used to make those decisions. “The task force consisted of nine members with Mr. Phelps as the chairman. The group consisted of three community members that have children in school, two teachers and three school staff members. The task force met eight times for two hours between November and January. Concealed carry policies from four schools located in Ohio, Texas, Colorado and Idaho were viewed. The starting point for our policy was an initial draft developed for the Wyoming School Boards Association by our school attorney Mr. Scott Kolpitcke,” Greet said.

She said the task force met with Washakie County Sheriff Steve Rakness as well for two hours … he reviewed, responded and made recommendations. The task force had a conference call with Dr. Jerry Post a psychologist in Cheyenne regarding testing to determine suitability of applicants.

SURVEY

A survey of school staff was conducted to determine the willingness to apply if a policy was adopted. The results from 34 voluntary respondents were that three said that they will be applying, eight said that they would consider applying, 17 said that they would not apply and five said that they wish no one would, Greet said. She added that the committee members had a vested interest in the policy with 13 children between them all.

Titus added, “Throughout the conversations and working with the task force it was always brought up and always our focus that our No. 1 priority is prevention of anything happening in this school building in the first place. The board has made great strides in adding additional security, helping us focus on things during drills and thinking about the things that we need to be mindful of but this is kind of a last stand policy. Probably a policy that we will never need to use. If we’ve done everything we can and constantly focus on prevention then this would never be an issue, unfortunately the world we live in today makes us thinks about these things.”

After that brief introduction Greet and Titus went on to explain the policy the task force created section by section.

SHERIFF, ATTORNEY COMMENTS

Before public comment school attorney Kolpitcke and Rakness explained to the board a couple issues that they found with the policy. Kolpitcke spoke of many small changes of wordage that needed to be addressed and asked the board to consider only coaches who were employed by the school full time in the list of employees who would be considered for concealed carry. “I assume that you have several coaches who are employed otherwise full time by the district as teachers or some other capacity. You probably have other coaches who are not employed by the district in any other capacity and the reason that I bring that up is because when you are considering an employee who is a full time employee who submits an application to concealed carry, you have a lot of information on that employee, you have their application to the school district, their resumé, evaluations, you have feedback from other employees when you consider whether to grant that application. You can have a coach who doesn’t work for you in any other capacity except as a coach; you don’t probably have the same level of information.”

Rakness spoke about needing to change the approval level part of the policy and the usage of biometric boxes. “Approval levels, my thought and this is just my thought, why do you have a level? Either you are approved to carry a concealed weapon or you’re not. Pure and simple. Either you have biometric locked boxes or you don’t. In my opinion, a weapon in a locked box is worthless. If you go to the bathroom and something happens, you have to have access. If you go out on the playground and you leave your gun in the biometric locked box, what’s it do for you? It doesn’t do anything for you. It’s locked away. I don’t think any teachers or staff are going to run down the hallway to get their gun in the middle of a gun fight. I hope that they would be taking other actions. I believe that if the board goes this way you should carry your concealed weapon with you at all times.”

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Many community members stated concerns about different aspects of the policy but no one commented that they were completely against it. Concerns stated were:

— The policy states a round cannot be in the chamber, but law enforcement is trained to be locked and loaded.

— The number of employees that would be allowed to carry.

— Would the required training in the policy be enough?

— Would the adoption of the policy raise the schools liability rates?

— Concern over accidents occurring.

— Should those approved for concealed carry be psychologically evaluated more often than the beginning evaluation required?

— Mental and emotional consequences of having to use their weapon.

Community member and gunsmith Bill Fuchs stated that he has been a gun enthusiast for 42 years and active in the firearm industry for 17 years. He stated that he has been previously certified as a home firearms and defense firearms instructor and that not having armed employees could be dangerous for the staff and students since law enforcement is so far away.

Fuchs said, “Bad guys as we know come from all walks of life, from other states, from other school districts and God forbid we could even see one from our own community. It is well known that the very presence of a firearm is enough to deter the advance of a bad guy. What we know about shootings is this, whether it be an Amish, rural, one-room school house in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, or a large high school like Columbine, Colorado, one thing is true, there are plenty of teachers, plenty of school workers and even students who say if, if, if, if, if they had a way, if they had a firearm to shoot the bad guy they could have stopped the threat to students and themselves and saved innocent lives.

“We are not talking about marksman class gun carrying individuals; we are talking about the same ones that we trust daily with our children to even the playing field to allow them to stop the advances of a bad guy if the opportunity arises. It doesn’t take much to hit ones target at 10 feet; many times the bad guy was merely on the other side of a desk, behind a door or close enough to touch. This is the distance that many teachers and school workers said that the bad guy with a gun passed them by.

“You may hear concerns tonight about proper safety, these are concerns that are easily remedied with short classes on gun safety, within the confines of the school. You may hear tonight concerns about marksmanship, so that an innocent child or teacher is not harmed in crossfire. I submit to you this, the very persons requesting to carry the firearm are two things; one they are intimately familiar with the firearm that they carry on what it can and cannot do and secondly they are proficient at shooting accurately. For the individuals that want to be part of protecting our children with a firearm if the need arises, that have no formal training they will be just like our EMT’s, just like our paramedics and fireman, they will rise to the occasion and learn firearm safety and how to shoot a gun with proficiency.

“These are the two truths that I leave you with, if we say no to allowing our teachers to possess firearms to protect our children, we are effectively saying, I do not trust you. Lastly this truth cannot be denied. True every time, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The board took no action on the proposed policy stating that it would be added to March’s agenda for discussion.