Tennessee law to let teachers carry guns in schools caused a ruckus, but has drawn little interest

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Josh Arrowood carries his .22-caliber handgun most everywhere he goes in his rural Tennessee community — to church at Freewill Baptist, at the Food City store where he shops for groceries, and in the Greene County Courthouse, where he serves as a commissioner.

A new state law that passed this spring would let him, under certain conditions, carry the gun at his workplace, too — South Greene Middle School in Greeneville, where he teaches world history to sixth graders. And Arrowood, who’s had a handgun permit for 15 years, is open to doing so if it can provide an extra layer of security against a school shooting.

“I was in high school when Columbine happened,” he said, recalling the 1999 massacre at a Colorado high school. “And I remember kids putting things like a bat or a baseball in their backpacks so they could try to protect themselves if a shooting happened in their school.”

A gun, at least, “gives a teacher a chance if there’s an armed intruder,” he said.

But between concerns about his personal liability and ambivalence about the new law from local school leaders, he won’t be carrying his pocket-size gun to class this school year.

And because of the way Tennessee’s new law was written, he said, “I don’t expect anybody to take advantage of it.”

Indeed, for all the protests and discord over the legislation before it passed, there’s little talk among school districts or educators about using the option to arm teachers or staff as the new academic year begins. Not a single school system has indicated that it’s planning or working to train employees to carry a gun voluntarily under the new law, according to dozens of school and law enforcement officials contacted by Chalkbeat.

Then again, no one can be sure, since the law doesn’t require local officials to report whether they are deploying the option in any of their schools. And any documents that kickstart the program at the local level aren’t open to the public.

But the law does lay down a set of conditions for a teacher to be able to carry a gun in school, including a training requirement, a mental health evaluation, and a signed agreement between the superintendent and principal, plus written authorization from local law enforcement.

And there’s another big hurdle: a provision that assigns teachers sole liability for anything that might go wrong with their gun, including an accidental shooting, or their failure to prevent a tragedy.

The tepid response to the law signals a disconnect between educators and lawmakers on whether more guns in schools make them safer, or could accidentally cause more harm. There’s concern about shifting even more responsibilities to teachers, turning schools into prison-like environments, and unwittingly disrupting an educational climate that should be welcoming and supportive. Tennessee’s urban communities are especially desperate to get guns and gun violence out of their schools.

School Shootings Spur Efforts to Arm Teachers

After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Newtown, Connecticut, where a shooter slaughtered 26 people, including 20 children, dozens of states introduced legislation to arm teachers and staff. More than 30 states now allow it under certain conditions, according to the Giffords Law Center, which tracks gun laws.

In Tennessee, which has some of the nation’s most permissive gun laws, the legislature passed a 2016 law to let some school employees carry a gun in certain rural counties to try to bolster security at remotely located schools without an armed school resource officer. But efforts by local law enforcement to obtain liability insurance to train school staff proved to be a stumbling block.

Former Rep. David Byrd, a Waynesboro Republican and retired school principal who sponsored the measure for Wayne and Pickett counties, said he still supports the strategy, but is not aware of any school employee who has carried a gun under that law.

In 2018, after another mass school shooting killed 17 people and injured 17 others in Parkland, Florida, Rep. Ryan Williams began his annual quest to revise and expand the law across Tennessee.

A Republican from Cookeville, about 80 miles east of Nashville, Williams said he was motivated, in part, by concern about his own two children who, at the time, attended a 2,400-student public high school with one school resource officer and dozens of potential points of entry. He argued that teachers need “more than a stapler” to protect their students and themselves if locked in a classroom with a shooter in the building.

But each year, Williams faced resistance from top law enforcement organizations such as the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. They worried that teachers carrying guns could lead to even more gun-related deaths or injuries in a state that already has a higher-than-normal rate of accidental shootings.

Then came the deadly 2023 shooting at Nashville’s church-run Covenant School, where a shooter murdered three children and three adults before being killed by police.

Mass protests erupted, with thousands of students, parents, and educators flooding Tennessee’s Capitol to demand tighter gun laws and reduced access to guns.

Among other things, they wanted to roll back a 2021 law that lets the majority of Tennesseans carry a loaded handgun in most public places without first clearing a background check, obtaining a permit, or getting trained on firearms safety. And they sought laws that would keep guns away from people who may be experiencing a mental health crisis.

The Republican-controlled legislature, however, went a different way, rushing to adjourn after prioritizing measures to further fortify the state’s K-12 campuses. A $230 million investment in school safety paid for security upgrades at public and private schools alike, and most significantly, included funding to place a full-time SRO in every public school across Tennessee.

Against that backdrop, Williams resurrected his bill to let Tennessee school employees voluntarily carry guns under certain conditions.

His co-sponsor, Sen. Paul Bailey, argued the law was needed to provide an armed presence on every campus, especially in rural areas that serve a third of the state’s students. On the Senate floor in April, the Sparta Republican said nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools still didn’t have an armed SRO, partly due to a shortage in the profession.

It’s hard to know whether those numbers were accurate, or still are. Under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration, the state stopped sharing school security data publicly.

Williams revised their bill to tighten the standards for who could carry and under what conditions — satisfying the state’s law enforcement groups which, for the first time, took a neutral position on the bill this year.

Carrying a gun would be allowed only if the local school superintendent, principal, and law enforcement official agree. A school employee who volunteers to carry must hold an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Liability Provision for Armed Employees Could be a Barrier

However, even for school employees who can meet those conditions, taking a gun to school became significantly less attractive under one more provision.

The law makes the armed employees solely liable for how they use, or fail to use, a handgun in school. Meanwhile, if a civil lawsuit is filed, the statute shields the school district and local law enforcement agency from having to pay monetary damages.

Liability is now part of the discussion for anyone dealing with the prospect, or the aftermath, of a school shooting. In addition to the pursuit of stricter gun laws, litigation and even criminal charges have become part of the healing and recovery process for survivors, family members, and community leaders seeking to hold people beyond the shooter accountable for anything that may have contributed to the bloodshed.

After the 2022 rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, for instance, families of the 19 victims sued police over the botched response, and also reached a $2 million settlement with the city, including the promise of higher standards and better training for local officers. In Oxford, Michigan, families of four high school students killed in a 2021 shooting there accused the school district of negligence in a lawsuit, and prosecutors charged the parents of the young shooter for failing to keep a gun away from him.

Liddy Ballard, state policy director at Brady, the nation’s oldest gun violence prevention organization, said Tennessee’s liability provision should be a red flag for any school employee interested in carrying a gun. Her group opposed the law and lobbies instead for gun safety legislation that is proven to reduce gun violence, such as extreme risk protection orders and expanded background checks, both of which Tennessee lawmakers have rejected.

“This bill is outright dangerous,” Ballard said, “but state lawmakers knew that from the beginning. Why else would they include an immunity clause for local education agencies that dissolves accountability when a teacher’s firearm is misused or falls into the wrong hands?”

The state’s two largest teacher organizations, which also opposed the legislation, agree that placing the liability burden solely on individual educators is a non-starter — or at least should be.

“As teachers consider the risks of carrying a firearm on school grounds, they need to know that it is unlikely they could obtain insurance coverage that would offer them any sort of protection should a claim be made against them,” said Tanya T. Coats, president of the Tennessee Education Association.

Secrecy is another pillar of the law.

In an effort to deter potential intruders who wouldn’t know which adults at school might have a gun, the law is built, in part, on the idea of confidentiality. Its provisions provide a veil of secrecy if a school superintendent and principal sign a written agreement to implement the policy — and anonymity for the person they authorize to carry or possess a firearm on school grounds.

Parents don’t have to be notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a concealed handgun, nor do educators if someone in their building is armed besides a law enforcement officer.

A district’s required notification to local law enforcement officials is not open for public inspection, nor are any other documents, files, or records related to carrying a weapon on school grounds under the law.

“The way it’s set up, there’s really no way to know” how many faculty or school staff members are carrying a gun, said Jeff Bledsoe, executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association. “It’s up to the local level to decide.”

Memphis School District Says No. Some Others Aren’t Saying.

Before and after the law was enacted, numerous local officials, particularly in the state’s largest cities and towns, announced they would not seek to arm school employees. Most said they already have a trained law enforcement officer in each of their schools.

“Schools are for learning, and emergency situations should be handled by trained officers,” said Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr., in a joint video announcement with Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Marie Feagins and interim Police Chief C.J. Davis in May. Memphis has long struggled with the presence of guns around its schools and neighborhoods.

Feagins said it more bluntly in their announcement: “We will not allow teachers to carry guns in our schools.”

But some school leaders, especially in the state’s rural areas, have been less vocal in recent months about their plans.

“Most districts don’t want anything to do with this policy,” said Gary Lilly, executive director of the state superintendent organization.

“A few have said maybe, just to keep their options open,” he added. “You can make the case that not announcing your plan is a way to keep bad guys from knowing either way, so there’s a bit of a deterrent.”

For some that are holding off, it may just take time for local officials and school employees to evaluate whether to take advantage of the law.

“This is all new, so some folks may be waiting and watching,” said Bledsoe, who leads the sheriffs’ organization.

Williams, the House sponsor, said he’s not surprised at the cool early reception, including in his own district, given that Tennessee is a diverse state with unique local needs and cultures that take time to sort through.

“Unfortunately, if we do have another active shooter in our state and something happens close to home, I think people would reevaluate their stance and consider doing it,” he said.

JC Bowman, who leads Professional Educators of Tennessee, has a different concern.

“My fear is that we’re opening up a Pandora’s box,” Bowman said. “What happens if our state budget gets tight? Will we starve our school safety money for SROs and turn to this?”

For Arrowood, who also has three school-age children, the issue is keeping kids safe at school in his rural corner of northeastern Tennessee.

Two years ago at a basketball game at his school, for instance, a parent came out of the stands and pulled a knife on a coach. No one was injured, and the parent left before the school’s SRO arrived on the scene, but “in situations like that, you never know,” he said.

Arrowood said he’s never had to use the gun he usually carries when he’s out in his community. “The goal is to never have to draw it,” he said.

He wouldn’t hesitate to use it at school, though, if he were allowed to carry it there and an armed intruder got inside, especially if something happened to the school’s SRO.

“Around here, people are used to guns. They’ve grown up with them. They’re hunters,” Arrowood continued. “But some people also fear guns, and a healthy fear of guns is a good thing. I guess it’s a balance.”