Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee is proposing a bill called the Teachers Empowered Against Classroom Harm (TEACH) Act. The bill will expand the Second Amendment rights of teachers and provide them with firearms training programs to protect students from armed intruders.
The TEACH Act will establish a grant program to provide defensive firearms training programs to schools to harden schools and safeguard students.
The legislation will also remove a prohibition on using Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds for school safety and repeal a section of the U.S. Code encouraging states and local jurisdictions to adopt policies going further than the Federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, Fox News digital reports.
Ogles believes that the money allocated to Education Secretary Cardona’s personal slush fund should be used to safeguard children from school shootings instead of promoting the Left’s indoctrination campaign.
The bill aims to allow responsible teachers and school staff to equip themselves to stop bad actors from harming students. Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, have shown support for the legislation.
The TEACH Act has already garnered support from double-digit GOP co-sponsors, including Biggs, Boebert, Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas, and Rep. Alex Mooney of West Virginia. The gun rights nonprofit Gun Owners of America (GOA) also supports the bill. Aidan Johnston, the GOA Director of Federal Affairs, believes that the legislation will play a critical role in hardening schools by creating a pool of federal funds to train willing teachers and modernizing school firearms policies.
Ogles’ district includes part of Nashville, where a transgender mass shooter killed three 9-year-olds and three adults at a Christian school last month.
The congressman criticized a far-left transgender group that he said is attempting to portray the Nashville school shooter as a “martyr.”
Following the shooting, the Trans Resistance Network issued a statement calling it a dual tragedy for the victims and their families, along with the transgender shooter.
Ogles believes that the notion of trying to justify the atrocity disgusts him to his core and that there is no place for accepting or justifying the actions of The Covenant School shooter.
