“Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary, said during her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that local authorities should decide whether guns should be barred from American schools,” vox.com reports, “citing the case of a school in Wyoming where a special fence protects students from bears.”
True story! Here’s her exchange with Connecticut Senator and gun control advocate Chris Murphy:
MURPHY: Do you think guns have any place in or around schools?
DEVOS: That is best left to locales and states to decide. If the underlying question is—
MURPHY: You can’t say definitively today that guns shouldn’t be in schools?
DEVOS: I will refer back to [Wyoming] Sen. [Mike] Enzi and the school he was talking about in Wyoming. I think probably there, I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.
MURPHY: If President Trump moves forward with his plan to ban gun-free school zones, will you support that?
DEVOS: I will support what the president-elect does. If the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.
Not exactly the best argument for eliminating Bush the Elder’s Gun Free School Zones Act — which would require an act of Congress to repeal — but we’ll take it! I mean, get rid of it. I only wish we could get rid of the sneering media coverage of her remark.
As for allowing cities and states to continue to ban guns in schools if and when the GFSZA takes a dirt nap, keep in mind that schools can opt out of the federal prohibition under the current law. Still, making them have to opt in would be a step forward. A step towards recognizing that the Second Amendment trumps ALL city and state laws, as the Supremes ruled in McDonald.