Trump Nominee Wants ‘Locales and States’ to Decide School Gun Policies

Authors Current Events S.H. Blannelberry
Trump Nominee Wants 'Locales and States' to Decide School Gun Policies

Betsy DeVos. (Photo: NBC News)

Leave it to the anti-gun media to disregard and distort the real news.

Betsy DeVos — Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education — was asked at her confirmation hearing this week whether or not firearms had any place “in or around schools.”

In a surprising statement from a future federal official, DeVos voiced her support for state and local control of the issue: “I think that’s best left to locales and states to decide,” she said.

But is that what made headlines on mainstream media outlets? It did not.

Instead, sources like NBC highlighted another statement from DeVos about potential grizzly bear attacks at a Wyoming school.

Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has been vocal on gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, pressed DeVos on whether she could say “definitively” if guns shouldn’t be in schools.

Instead of making a blanket statement about every school in the country, DeVos chose to reference an earlier remark by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) who described an elementary school in Wapiti, Wyoming, that had erected a fence to protect children from wildlife.

“I think probably there, I would imagine that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies,” DeVos said.

DeVos can’t speak for each and every school, so she referenced a school she does know about to imagine a situation in which guns might be necessary. She reiterated her statement about allowing local communities to choose. Americans of every stripe can support less federal intervention, but is that what trended on Twitter? It was not.

Instead, anti-gunners latched onto the phrase “potential grizzlies” to mock and demean the future Secretary of Education. Sen. Chuck Schumer said that DeVos “cite[d] grizzly bears as reason for guns in schools,” making it sound like grizzly attacks are the only rationale DeVos might have to support arming teachers and administrators.

Donald Trump has proposed to ban gun-free zones in schools, which he says attract shooters to areas they know are not defended.

Sen. Murphy also asked DeVos about her support of Trump’s proposal: “If President Trump moves forward with his plan to ban gun-free school zones, will you support that proposal?”

DeVos replied, “I will support what the president-elect does. But senator, if the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that I, I — my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.”

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  • Patriot January 21, 2017, 3:35 pm

    \”Leave it to the the anti-gun media to disregard and distort the real news.\” That was
    the first sentence in the article above about \”School Gun Policies.\”I hope to see the \”fake news\” media exposed to the American people for what
    they are. Believe it or not, the TV and newspaper media actually supported
    Obama, Hillary and the democrats in order to give the U.S. the worst and most
    asinine government in the entire history of the U.S. The \”fake news\” media is now
    trying to intimidate the president and republicans. Let\’s wait and see who gets
    intimidated if the \”fake news\” media does not have a change of attitude !!!! There
    are many millions of fair minded Americans who will see
    the destructive, arrogant, and lying nature of the \”fake news\” media.

  • Tom Horn January 21, 2017, 12:38 am

    Sad, Sen. Chucky Scummer, and the Dems mock DeVos for citing a case where children are protected from grizzly bears with guns, but their feeble minds can’t make the leap to consider using firearms to protect our children from human predators. Predators are predators.

  • Dan January 20, 2017, 7:08 pm

    This candidate can’t be judged on this singular topic. She’s an idiot, that has fought a long hard fight to push the average level of performance mediocrity and funding down in Michigan schools. She is as delicious as a burnt pan of applesauce and Amway oven cleaner.

  • steve January 20, 2017, 6:51 pm

    We do not need locals and state to decide any gun policies, the only source for gun policies should be the constitution and the second amendment. Our gun policy should be simple, the constitution gives us the right to own and carry within our United States borders and territories, where, what, and how are undefined and must be left that way so that the “shall not infringe” aspect is held strong and intact. If we allow the states to decide on any gun policy, we open the door for the state to determine all gun policy.

  • AK January 20, 2017, 4:22 pm

    The real issue is the curriculum in our schools being chosen by elitist cultural world-homogenizers like Soros and Gates, and implemented by affirmative-action hires in DC. Get Washington out of the States\’ business, one part of which is education. Disband the Dept of Education (term used loosely) which exists only to redistribute $$. The \’guns in schools\’ issue is a smokescreen.

  • Bob I. January 20, 2017, 8:25 am

    Never mind asking her about her plans to begin the long and painful process of reversing the decades-long “dumbing-down” of the American public education system. Democrats are evidently frozen in perpetuity when it comes to ignoring the piss-poor end results that came from their hijacking our public education system and turning it into their propaganda machine.

  • JohnHR January 20, 2017, 7:32 am

    On other education policy issues: What does DeVos think about academic standards, teacher evaluations, how to improve struggling schools, segregation — the issues that most affect the way students and teachers across the country experience school on a daily basis? We still don’t know, because DeVos wasn’t asked about them.
    Credit: 538.com

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