Legislation that would allow public and private school teachers in the Magnolia State to be armed has passed the Mississippi Senate.
On Wednesday, Senate Bill 2079, authored by Senator Angela Hill, R-Picayune, passed after receiving 39 yea votes and 13 nay votes.
The bill would establish a School Safety Guardian Training Program, which would be administered by Mississippi Homeland Security under the umbrella of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS).
Governing bodies of school systems throughout the state would have the autonomy to determine whether or not they will participate in the program. Authorities within participating school districts would either approve or deny permission for a volunteer school employee to be involved in the program.
“If a school wants to put together an armed educator team to work with law enforcement and to be trained to basically assist in the time of an active shooter or some unfortunate situation, the framework is now in place once we get this bill through the House,” Senator Hill said on The Gallo Show.
To participate in the program, one must possess an enhanced or concealed carry permit prior to applying.
According to DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell, once qualified, those participating in the program go through a two-to-three-week training session where they are educated on tactics related to gun safety and proper interaction with the police if a crisis happened to occur.
“They would learn self-defense tactics. They would learn firearm tactics. They would learn communication with law enforcement,” Tindell said on MidDays with Gerard Gibert. “If we’re going to have teachers in schools with a firearm, they’re going to have the proper training and an interaction plan with law enforcement.”
Training would be conducted at the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officer Training Academy in Pearl and led by multiple law enforcement agencies in collaboration with one another.
