Bill Tallen

We have crossed another Rubicon, as Wyoming Statute 6-8-105 is now law, based on House Bill 172 passed in this year’s legislative session. Along with other, less controversial provisions it enables any Wyoming citizen over the age of 21, who is not a student of the school and who possesses a Concealed Firearm Permit to carry a concealed weapon onto any K-12 school property in the state. 

The permit is a requirement, due to the federal Gun Free School Zones Act that makes it a federal crime to possess a firearm on school grounds unless you are a law enforcement officer or are “licensed by the state.” Our state Concealed Firearm Permit in your possession constitutes that license, now that Wyoming statutes have been amended by HB 172 to say so. Open carry, and permit-less “constitutional” concealed carry are not allowed; you have to have that “license.”

School districts across the state are working to adapt to the change. They fall into two distinct categories: those few that have had armed staff programs under prior state law from 2017; and those that chose not to take that route. In a concession to the former group, HB 172’s sponsor amended his bill to allow school districts to create, or to amend and continue their rules and regulations governing concealed carry by employees. What this means is that although all districts must now allow permitted, concealed carry by visitors (without notification, question or challenge), they can, if they choose, regulate (but not forbid) concealed carry by their own employees. 

Under the new law, districts can require that employees must notify their administration (and by extension, law enforcement who will be responding to any incident) of their intent to carry, and must complete minimal training. Semantics, such as the definition of “concealed," and discipline, such as the schedule of penalties for violating regulations, inevitably consume some bandwidth, but the law limits excess in these areas.

To many districts, the alternative to an armed staff program under the new law is worse: having employees carrying concealed firearms without anyone’s knowledge, and without any consistent standard of training (which of course describes visitors now, but there is no option regarding them). 

The districts that already have armed staff programs, created under the old law, are to my knowledge all updating their rules in accordance with the new statute. After all, they’ve been through the rule-making process before, so it’s neither unfamiliar nor daunting; and they’ve seen the benefits. 

Those benefits are a substantial increase in their schools’ safety against the active shooter threat, with exactly none of the downsides loudly predicted by the critics and naysayers back in 2018-2019 when these programs began. No armed teachers have “snapped” and executed annoying students; or left their firearms unattended, to be stolen and misused; or dropped them in the toilet stall in the faculty bathroom to discharge and destroy the toilet (as actually happened — once — in Utah years ago). None have even failed to conceal their weapon, thus avoiding the irreparable psychological and emotional scarring of students and fellow staff members that critics considered inevitable.

I say all this confidently, because I have been conducting the initial and annual training for armed school staff members in three Wyoming districts (of the five total) since 2019. In addition to those three, I have been talking recently with several other districts that are working on rules and regulations for their staff. Every one of them deserve our respect for making the effort. Hats off in particular to Cody’s PCSD6, which is out in front of the pack, as they were in 2019.

The advantages of regulating carry by school staff are simple and clear. If you agree that our kids should be protected against the unlikely but catastrophic possibility of an active shooter in their school, you should recognize that when those events occur — that is, when all forms of deterrence, detection and intervention fail — they only end when the shooter decides to quit, or when he is confronted by armed opposition. To the “no guns in school!” crowd, I have always pointed out that when kids are being shot, all anyone cries out for is more guns, in that school, “right now” to stop the killer. The only way to have them there “right now” is in the hands of willing, trained employees, who can be counted on to be there every day because that’s their job. There will never be enough SROs, and responding police are almost always too late, through no fault of their own. And the chances of a visiting citizen with a permit being present, who is well-trained in close quarter combat and all the particular challenges and requirements of a school environment, are very slim indeed.