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February 10, 2013

Firearms bills moving

Associated Press Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — While a special school safety commission formed after the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut continues its work, Oklahoma legislators are pushing ahead with their own proposals to allow for armed teachers and more guns on school campuses.

A House committee last week passed a measure giving school boards the option to allow teachers who receive law enforcement training to carry weapons into schools, and several other bills have been introduced to allow those with a handgun license to bring guns onto school campuses.

Meanwhile, the school safety commission is beginning to formulate its own ideas about how to make schools safer with no mention of guns, raising concern among some pro-gun activists that the commission could be used to provide political cover for legislative leaders to quietly kill some of the more far reaching gun proposals.

“I would think that possibility is there, but from where we’re at, we’re just going to plow through no matter what the school safety commission says,” said Don Spencer, the deputy director of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association, which has pushed for expanded gun rights in Oklahoma in recent years.

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