An insurance company currently providing coverage for the vast majority of Kansas school districts is refusing to renew coverage for schools permitting teachers and custodians to carry concealed firearms.
The EMC Insurance Cos., which presently insures 85 to 90 per cent
of Kansas school districts, along with the smaller Continental
Western Group, has found that a new state law allowing holders of
concealed carry permits to bring concealed weapons into public
buildings, conflicts with standing policy that only qualified
personnel be armed on school premises.
“We’ve been writing school
business for almost 40 years, and one of the underwriting
guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed
security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law
enforcement officers,” said Mick Lovell, EMC’s vice
president for business development speaking to the Des Moines
Register.
“Our guidelines have not
recently changed,” he adds.
The state’s new gun law took effect on July 1, and is similar to
another law in the state of Utah. Such regulations have been
touted by firearms groups including the National Rifle
Association in response to mass shooting events, such as 2012’s
massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut.
Though Connecticut’s legislature moved to enact stricter gun
ownership laws in the wake of that tragedy, other states around
the country have followed a different route, with at least 30
states evaluating proposed laws allowing teachers and school
staff to carry firearms on the campuses of primary and secondary
schools.
Since Sandy Hook the states of South Dakota, Alabama, Arizona and
Kansas have all since enacted laws allowing staff to carry guns
on school premises, while Texas, which already allowed staff to
carry firearms with prior school approval, passed additional laws
creating a “school
marshal” program. Similar bills have failed in other
states.
While some states have ratified new gun carry provisions in
schools requiring only a concealed-firearm permit, others, such
as South Dakota, require law enforcement-approved training.
Still, the response by Kansas insurers to the change in the law
could well be a harbinger of things to come elsewhere in the
country.
Bob Skow, chief executive officer of the Independent Insurance
Agents of Iowa, tells the Des Moines Register that he’s not
surprised by the insurers’ decisions.
“It’s one thing to have a
trained peace officer with a gun in school; it’s a completely
different situation when you have a custodian or a teacher with a
gun,” Skow said.
“That changes the risk of
insuring a school and magnifies it considerably,” he adds.
Only days following the Sandy Hook school shooting, NRA Executive
Vice President Wayne LaPierre suggested that schools around the
US should have armed security personnel, as well as arming school
staff.
"Will you at least admit it's
possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared?"
LaPierre asked during a press appearance.
"The only thing that stops a
bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he added.
According to The New York Times, school district administrators
in the state of Oregon are reeling after the state School Boards
Association, which manages liability coverage for the majority of
school districts, enacted an additional premium totaling $2,500
for each faculty member with a firearm on campus.
“Pretty much every last bit of
our money is budgeted,” Jackson County official Scott
Whitman told the Times. “To me,
that could be quite an impediment to putting this
forward.” Oregon’s Jackson County currently has a
committee evaluating whether to allow school staff members to
carry firearms by next year.
Kansas state senator Forrest Knox, the chief advocate of the
state’s new gun law, remains convinced that having more guns in
schools and public buildings can prevent injuries and deaths.
“I’m not an insurance expert,
but it’s hard for me to believe that if schools and other public
buildings allow law-abiding citizens to carry that that increases
risk — it’s news to me,” Knox tells the Register.
“Law enforcement responds
better (to school shootings now), but it still takes a few
minutes, and a lot of damage can be done in a few
minutes,” he adds.
According to David Shriver, director of the Kansas school board
association’s insurance program, as of Saturday no school
district had yet opted to allow holders of concealed carry
permits on school grounds with a firearm.