Let’s get this out of the way. “If the sheriff deems someone safe to carry, I’m not sure on what grounds I have the right to deem them unsafe to carry.” That’s one of the arguments School Board Trustee Chad Vegas deploys to convince fellow Board members to authorize a “select group of concealed carry permit holders” (teachers?) to carry a firearm on the campuses of Bakersfield, California’s Kern High School District. You and I know that the Constitution is the only permit an armed American should need to exercise his or her gun rights in any public space. But…baby steps. As bakersfield.com reports, Mr. Vegas and fellow Trustee Mike Williams are clearly on the side of the angels . . .
Board Trustee Chad Vegas said the law is a Second Amendment rights issue, and he would not infringe on anyone’s right to bear arms, including on a school campus . . .
KHSD’s existing policies prohibit anyone other than law enforcement from carrying a weapon onto any school campus, in any district building or to a premises where a school-related event is being hosted.
That policy creates some confusion, [Trustee Mike] Williams said. A CCW permit holder carrying a weapon to a golf course where a high school team is competing could be arrested, he explained.
“We have churches that use our campuses on weekends and some of them receive threats. We’ve got all kinds of issues. This is not simply a staff issue — this is a public issue,” Williams said, going on to describe CCW permit holders as “good, amazing citizens who have passed high criteria” to carry weapons in public.
Below a picture of a SilencerCo integrally suppressed Maxim handgun (of all things), bakersfield.com jumps in to point out that three — count ’em three — local permit holders “have killed others with their guns since 2009” and that “none of those was out of self-defense.”
Still, Mssrs. Vegas and Williams have made their point. And credit to baskersfield.com for giving Mr. Williams the last word:
Williams said CCW permit holders should only fire their weapons on a school campus if their lives are threatened.
“The gun is there to protect,” Williams said. “We’re not looking to create an additional police force.”
Actually, they are. But who’s going to argue with that? Not us, who award the dynamic duo TTAG’s Gun Hero of the Day Award. Thanks for being there.
Let’s get this out of the way. “If the sheriff deems someone safe to carry, I’m not sure on what grounds I have the right to deem them unsafe to carry.”
Geee….I remember when people dragged guns all over the high school many moons ago. Bomb threats were in vogue though.
And it was mighty strange the number of bomb threats that happened coincidentally on exam days.
H’mmm…
Depending on where you were in the country it’s not even that long ago.
Kids brought hunting rifles and shotguns to school in their vehicles to my school when I a sophomore in high school all of 17 years go. Columbine changed that.
Perhaps this may help those who write off Cali appreciate that there are many of us who didn’t vote for the state representation as it currently exists, and are doing everything we can to roll back the tyranny of the eedjits.
Talk is cheap. Well, it is except in colleges and courtrooms.
With two lawyers and a judge, talk isn’t so cheap in a courtroom.
Kern County is the Texas of California. The sheriff there issued me a carry permit. And self defense was a viable reason for wanting to carry.
I’m not surprised to see rural California support civil rights. I will remind people it was men wearing dresses who traveled from anti civil rights San Francisco to this part of rural California to protest the voters who passed prop 8 in the county.
They were not there to support the civil right to self defense.
The battle for civil rights in California is in the rural areas of the state not big cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Suprising.
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