Attorney General Dave Yost files Supreme Court brief in support of school districts letting employees go armed

Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost, who has earned multiple endorsements and A-ratings from the BFA-PAC, has put his support behind Madison Local School District's policy to arm school personnel.

From coverage byOhioCapitalJournal.com:

“This case presents the question whether school districts may allow non-security employees to carry firearms on school grounds,” Yost wrote in a brief to the court. “The answer is yes.”

Yost filed the brief as an interested party in the case of Gabbard v. Madison Local School District Board of Education, a case in which parents at the school sued to keep the school from implementing such a policy.

The attorney general, who is the chief legal officer for the state and the overseer of the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, said his interest in the case focused on allowing school districts to make their own security decisions.

“The Attorney General has an interest in ensuring that, so long as they comply with Ohio law, Ohio’s local school districts may make decisions about how best to protect Ohio’s school children,” Yost wrote.

Current state law allows school boards to make decisions about the security in their schools. However, a lawsuit involving Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety sought to prevent Madison Local School District from arming staff. The district initially received a favorable ruling, but an appeals court overturned it. The result is that employees carrying firearms in schools would be required to complete more than 700 hours of peace officer training, most of which is irrelevant to stopping active killers.

In his brief, Yost argued the 12th District Court of Appeals was mistaken in reversing the decision of a lower court.

...Yost disagreed with the court’s argument that peace officer training was needed for armed personnel that enter a school. The provision of the law requiring the peace officer training says armed personnel are designated as a “special police officer, security guard, or other position in which such a person goes armed while on duty.”

The brief argued that teachers, principals, and other personnel, even armed ones, are not employed as security personnel, therefore they do not fall under the same rules as those paid for specific security duties.

“To the contrary, they are employed in a position for which being armed is irrelevant; they just voluntarily choose to carry a weapon,” Yost said. “No one would describe a salesman or a valet who carries a concealed weapon as being ‘employed in a position in which such a person goes armed while on duty.’”

Even if teachers were mandated to take peace officer training, Yost said “much of the program would be a waste of time,” including classes on driving a patrol car, interacting with the media, human relations, domestic violence and field-sobriety testing.

“All of this training is valuable for Ohio police officers, who regularly rely on it in carrying out their various law-enforcement duties,” Yost said. “But it is quite irrelevant to school teachers and administrators who wish only to carry a firearm so they are prepared to deal with an active shooter.”

Yost went on to say if the state Supreme Court accepted the 12th District’s logic, “it would strip school districts of the freedom to decide for themselves whether arming school employees is an effective means to deter and mitigate mass shootings.”

The Ohio Supreme Court has voted to allow Madison schools to arm school staff when students return, even as they prepare to hear the appeal of a lower court ruling against the practice.

Chad D. Baus served as Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary from 2013-2019. He is co-founder of BFA-PAC, and served as its Vice Chairman for 15 years. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website, and is also an NRA-certified firearms instructor.

Additional Information:

BFA Testifies in Favor of SB 317 to Exempt School Employees from Peace Officer Training