COLUMBUS, Ohio — On the same day that Ohio’s permitless concealed carry law took effect, Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday followed through with his promise to sign a bill making it easier for teachers to carry handguns onto school property.

“It’s hard for me to believe any school will be arming a teacher who has never before had a gun in their hands,” Mr. DeWine said. “This is a serious, serious decision. But it’s also serious and would be, I think, negligent to deny schools the ability to make these decisions.”

The law will take effect in 90 days. It reduces the amount of training required of teachers, administrators, janitors and other personnel authorized by school boards to carry guns inside schools, on buses, and in other school safety zones.

It is a response to a 2019 Ohio Supreme Court ruling that said such personnel had to complete the same 700-hour-plus training through the Ohio Peace Officers Training Commission that official school security officers must complete.

“This is a local choice,” Mr. DeWine said. “It is not mandated by the Legislature or by the governor. Each school board will determine what is best for their students, their staff and their community.”

The law reduces required training to a maximum of 24 hours, although Mr. DeWine used his authority to mandate the full 24 hours. He has also ordered that participating employees go through eight hours of additional training annually. Nothing would prevent participating schools from requiring even more.

The training curriculum would be developed and provided regionally through the Ohio School Safety Center within the Department of Public Safety.

The law also requires designated employees to get concealed-carry licenses that come with their own eight hours of training, despite the fact that such permits and the accompanying training is now no longer required of other Ohioans under the new permitless carry law.

This bill had been pending in the General Assembly for several years, but its passage became a priority after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting on May 24 in which an 18-year-old man killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle and heavy ammunition he’d just legally purchased.

Supporters — including gun-rights organizations like the National Rifle Association, some school districts and some county sheriffs — have argued that lives might have been saved in a setting like Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School if an employee inside the building had been armed.

Opponents — including teachers’ unions, the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police and anti-gun violence groups — have countered that the presence of guns inside a classroom only increases the chances of it falling into the wrong hands or puts teachers in the potential position of having to shoot one of their own students.

“Our students and educators need to be in safe environments where they can focus on teaching and learning, not on the threat of having unprepared, woefully undertrained people — regardless of their good intentions — making split-second, life-or-death decisions about whether to pull the trigger in a chaotic classroom full of innocent bystanders,” said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association. “It would take hundreds of hours of training and firearms practice to be ready for those situations.

“Governor DeWine says he’s fine with just 24 hours of instruction. It’s absurd.”

Jim Provance (jprovance@theblade.com) is the Toledo Blade's Columbus bureau chief. The Block News Alliance consists of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Blade of Toledo, Ohio, and television station WDRB in Louisville, Ky.

First Published: June 13, 2022, 10:52 p.m.