Thread: Attorney General blocks school district’s plan to arm teachers

Attorney General blocks school district’s plan to arm teachers

Posted by EAGNEWS on Aug 8, 2013

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has issued a legal opinion that will prevent school districts from arming teachers and school administrators this fall. The decision likely blocks Clarksville School District’s plan to arm more than 20 district employees with concealed 9mm handguns for the upcoming school year.
In preparation for the program, more than 20 Clarksville administrators and staff members completed 53 hours of training through the Nighthawk Custom Training Academy, a private training facility in northwest Arkansas.
The training included role playing of school shootings using air soft pellet guns.
Participants were to be given a one-time stipend of $1,100 to purchase a handgun and holster. The district expected to pay about $50,000 for ammunition and training.
“The plan we’ve been given in the past is ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best,’” Clarksville Superintendent David Hopkins told the Associated Press. But as deadly incidents continued to happen in schools, he explained, the district decided, “That’s not a plan.”
The district was trying to use a little known state law that was implemented to allow the arming of private guards working for security agencies, according to USA Today.
But it looks as if the district’s plan has been shot down before it could be implemented.
“Simply put, the code in my opinion does not authorize either licensing a school district as a guard company or classifying it as a private business authorized to employ its own teachers as armed guards,” AG McDaniel wrote.
Hopkins said he discussed the opinion with McDaniel and the district will comply with his ruling.
“Obviously we’re going to comply with the law. We’re not going to break the law,” Hopkins told the AP. “We wanted to provide the training and give the sense of a secure place for our parents and students. I tell you, this has really thrown a monkey wrench into it.”
Bill Sadler, a spokesman for the Arkansas State Police, said pending applications by two or three other school districts seeking similar licenses have been put on hold, reports the AP.
There doesn’t appear to be any help on the way from the state legislature.
In February, a House panel rejected a bill which would have allowed employees to carry weapons on school property once they completed a 40-hour training session with the state.
By Trevor TenBrink at EAGnews.org

http://joeforamerica.com/2013/08/att...-arm-teachers/


This is amazing...if teachers are trained in this what is the problem, our banks are protected with armed guards are children are protected by WHAT???


More from this article

Dustin McDaniel, Arkansas Attorney General, Says School Districts Can't Arm Teachers, Staff
By ANDREW DeMILLO 08/01/13 07:55 PM ET EDT
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas school districts can't use a little-known state law to employ teachers and staff as guards who can carry guns on campus, the state's attorney general said Thursday in an opinion that likely ends a district's plan to arm more than 20 employees when school starts later this year.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, wrote in a legal opinion issued by his office that a state board that licenses private security agencies didn't have the authority to allow districts to employ their teachers and staff as security guards. A state lawmaker requested the opinion a day after The Associated Press reported on a plan by the Clarksville School District in western Arkansas to use more than 20 teachers and staff as volunteer security guards armed with concealed 9 mm handguns.
"Simply put, the code in my opinion does not authorize either licensing a school district as a guard company or classifying it as a private business authorized to employ its own teachers as armed guards," McDaniel wrote.
David Hopkins, Clarksville's superintendent, said he had spoken with McDaniel earlier Thursday about the opinion. Hopkins said he was still reviewing the opinion but that "it sounds like he's saying that we can't do the program."
"Obviously we're going to comply with the law. We're not going to break the law," said Hopkins, who had appeared on NBC's "Today" show Thursday morning to tout the program. "We wanted to provide the training and give the sense of a secure place for our parents and students. I tell you, this has really thrown a monkey wrench into it."
The idea of arming schoolhouses against gunmen was hotly debated across the country after the school shooting in Connecticut last December that left 20 children and six teachers dead. The National Rifle Association declared it the best response to serious threats. But even in the most conservative states, most proposals faltered in the face of resistance from educators or warnings from insurance companies that schools would face higher premiums.
Participants in Clarksville's program are given a one-time $1,100 stipend to purchase a handgun and holster. Hopkins said the district is paying about $50,000 for ammunition and for training by Nighthawk Custom Training Academy, a private training facility in northwest Arkansas.
The 53-hour training program included roleplaying drills of school shootings, with teachers and staff using "airsoft" pellet guns, with students wearing protective facemasks and jackets.
The Lake Hamilton School District has been using the same law for years to train a handful of administrators as security guards, but the guns are locked away and not carried by the administrators during the school day.

Lake Hamilton Superintendent Steve Anderson said he was talking with local prosecutors, school attorneys and other officials about how to proceed. Anderson said the district has had its license for 25 years.
"We'll take appropriate measures and I imagine this is something that will eventually be settled in a court of law or the Legislature," Anderson said.
Bill Sadler, a spokesman for Arkansas State Police, said pending applications by two or three districts for similar licenses have been put on hold because of McDaniel's opinion. Later Thursday, Sadler said any pending applications for entities or businesses that aren't security companies were also on hold.
Sadler said it will be up to the licensing board on what to do with the 13 existing licenses.
"We've got to hear from the board what they want us to do with the existing licenses that are out there," Sadler said. "Until we hear that and get some clear guidance from the board, we're in a holding pattern"
McDaniel said his opinion wouldn't affect districts' ability to contract with private security companies or to use law enforcement as school resource officers. He also noted that the Legislature has the power to change the law prohibiting school employees from carrying guns on campus.
A House panel in February rejected a bill that would have allowed some school employees to carry concealed handguns on campus after completing a 40-hour course at a state law enforcement training academy.
McDaniel's non-binding opinion also said that it's up to prosecutors whether or how to proceed against school employees who are relying on the licenses to carry concealed weapons on campus.
McDaniel noted that the districts were seeking licenses under a provision of the law that applies to private security firms and guard companies.
"If a school district were indeed functioning as a `guard company,' then, it would be organized to provide services to any and all `customers' purely for the purpose of generating income – a private business motivation that is self-evidently anathema to a school district's purely public functions," he wrote.
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Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3691600.html





Bet his kids go to private school!!!!!

Can Dustin McDaniel survive in Arkansas?

By Sean Sullivan, Published: December 19, 2012 at 10:06 amE-mail the writer


Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s (D) admission of an inappropriate relationship with an attorney he met during the 2010 campaign complicates the Democrat’s 2014 gubernatorial bid. His team says he will not end his campaign. But whether or not he can survive the revelation in the longterm will likely depend on a number of variables, which we take a look at in some more detail below.
In this 2010 file photo, Attorney Gen. Dustin McDaniel, right, and his wife Bobbi walk through the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., after he filed for re-election. (Danny Johnston/AP)

1) The news surfaced during a custody case between the women with whom McDaniel had the relationship and her ex-husband. One question moving forward is whether this is a one or two day story, or if the local media will pursue it in more detail. The Associated Press reported that court records show the attorney with whom McDaniel had the relationship represented parents who successfully challenged the state’s school choice law. The state is appealing the ruling in the case, in which McDaniel’s office represented Arkansas.
A strategist close to McDaniel’s campaign characterized the relationship as an “isolated incident,” and expressed confidence the Democrat could still win the governorship.
“We remain confident that Dustin will be the next governor of Arkansas, as people judge him on the totality of his record and not an isolated incident,” the strategist said.





McDaniel is the only Democratic candidate in the race, and the presumed early frontrunner for his party’s nomination, meaning his past will be closely scrutinized by local reporters. The strategist close to McDaniel’s campaign did not expect him to have to testify in the case involving the woman with whom he had a relationship, because it is a custody dispute. In the case, the woman’s ex-husband reportedly accuses her of other relationships, drug use and money laundering, which McDaniel said he had no knowledge about. Candidates in other races have survived stories like this before. But if there are new details — and to be clear, there is nothing to suggest, at this point, that there are — beyond what came out on Tuesday, it will make things difficult for McDaniel.
2) Another question is how the news will affect other potential candidates. McDaniel has the Democratic field to himself right now. But if Democrats decide to recruit someone else, or another serious Democratic candidate jumps in, wagering McDaniel has become vulnerable as a result of the revelation, then that certainly changes the calculus in the contest. McDaniel has reportedly polled himself against former Democratic lieutenant governor Bill Halter and highway commissioner John Burkhalter. His numbers showed he could beat both men.
On the Republican side, Asa Hutchinson, the former DEA administrator and congressman who lost to now-Gov. Mike Beebe (D) in 2006, and Lt. Gov Mark Darr are regarded as the two most formidable potential candidates. To be clear, Democrats were going to have a tough time holding the governor’s mansion, even before Tuesday’s news. Arkansas has a strong history of electing Democratic governors, but the state has been tilting increasingly Republican in recent years.
3) McDaniel has already raised over $1 million for his bid. Fundraising will be a good gauge of his standing as the campaign moves forward. If donors lose faith that he can get past the story in the socially conservative state, it will be reflected in future fundraising reports.
4) It’s never good for a candidate to face a story like this in a campaign. But if it’s going to happen, its better politically for the candidate that it come out well in advance of Election Day. Remember the story about Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) billing taxpayers for travel on her private plane that surfaced early in the 2012 cycle? It became an afterthought by the end of her race as the controversy surrounding opponent Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) dominated the conversation.
Now, the Missouri race was a unique contest, and it’s not a certainty that other issues will overshadow McDaniel’s inappropriate relationship down the road in the campaign. But the fact that it came out in December 2012, as opposed to say, a month before Election Day, is relative good news for McDaniel.
Updated at 11:49 a.m.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...e-in-arkansas/