Rand Paul wants to repeal federal gun-free school zones: Tucker Carlson on Uvalde Shooting
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First published March 3, 2018, Updated August 7, 2019, Revisited June 25, 2022
During the eight years of the Obama administration there were 134 school shootings in the United States more than any other president before the Obama administration.
(Washington Examiner) Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., introduced legislation on Thursday that would repeal a 1990 law banning guns from school zones, a move that fits with his push to arm teachers and other school personnel so they can prevent school shootings like the one that took place in Florida last month.
Paul’s bill would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 and all amendments to that law.
The law bans weapons in and around all public and private K-12 schools, with limited exceptions. Its supporters say the law is needed to reduce violence at schools.
But Paul is a long-time advocate of allowing some teachers to be armed, and has argued along with other conservatives that current law makes schools easy targets for mass shootings.
In early 2013, just weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting that left 26 people dead, including 20 elementary school kids, Paul said it was time to arm teachers.
“If my kids were at that school, I would have preferred that the teacher had concealed-carry and had a gun in her desk,” Paul said then, according to USA Today.
“Is it perfect? No. Would they always get the killer? No. Would an accident sometimes happen in a melee? Maybe. But nobody had any defense, and he just kept shooting until he was tired and he decided to shoot himself,” he said of the Connecticut shooting.
History
The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was originally passed as section 1702 of the Crime Control Act of 1990. It added ; 18 U.S.C. § 922 itself was added by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.
The Supreme Court of the United States subsequently held that the Act was an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). This was the first time in over half a century that the Supreme Court limited Congressional authority to legislate under the Commerce Clause.
Following the Lopez decision, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno proposed changes to that were adopted in section 657 of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub.L. 104–208, 110 Stat. 3009, enacted September 30, 1996. These changes required that the firearm in question “has moved in or otherwise affects interstate commerce.” As nearly all firearms have moved in interstate commerce at some point in their existence, critics assert this was merely a legislative tactic to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling.
NOTE During the eight years of the Obama administration there were 134 school shooting in the United States more than any other president before the Obama administration.
