Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) rejected a school safety bill proposed by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) Wednesday, one that had been promoted by several of the parents of victims of the 2018 Parkland school shooting.
Schumer dismissed the legislation, first introduced in 2019, on which the Parkland victims’ parents had collaborated, claiming the bill “could see more guns in schools” and touting, “I blocked it.”
Not surprising that the Democrat leader would lie about the bill he blocked that parents of Parkland victims have been trying to pass for years.
Dems aren’t looking for solutions, they want wedge issues that they hope will keep them in power. Sick. https://t.co/f4zbNb03ey
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) May 26, 2022
The Luke and Alex School Safety Act seeks to codify into law an online federal clearinghouse on school safety best practices for improving school security for use by state and local educational agencies, higher education institutions, state and local law enforcement, healthcare professionals, and the general public.
The measure is named after Luke Hoyer and Alex Schachter, two victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting massacre.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Johnson said the measure “ensures that parents, teachers, school officials and other stakeholders have input into what those best practices are.”
He explained the clearinghouse would not mandate schools to take any specific action.
“Maybe most importantly, it publishes the available grant programs and federal resources available for school safety,” the senator said. “Again, it passed out of the Committee on Homeland Security Governmental Affairs twice, unanimously – once under my chairmanship, once under the chairmanship of Senator Peters.”
.@SenSchumer 21 people were murdered yesterday. Today you objected to passing the Luke & Alex School Safety Act named after my son was murdered in Parkland. The bill will save kids lives. Let’s meet to work together to prevent the next Uvalde and Parkland. pic.twitter.com/XvVsGz2hYx
— Max Schachter (@maxschachter) May 25, 2022
In a tweet to Schumer, Max Schachter, the father of Parkland victim Alex, said:
21 people were murdered yesterday. Today you objected to passing the Luke & Alex School Safety Act named after my son was murdered in Parkland. The bill will save kids lives. Let’s meet to work together to prevent the next Uvalde and Parkland.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was murdered in the Parkland shooting, told Fox News Digital Wednesday state governments have not “learned anything” from past school shootings.
He asserted more gun laws are not the solution to prevent future shootings, and even suggested focusing on more gun laws could lead to further shootings:
They didn’t learn anything from what happened in Texas at that school shooting, they didn’t learn anything from what happened in Parkland at that shooting, they didn’t learn anything from what happened at Sandy Hook. When you focus on just gun control this is what happens. It’s happened again.
Pollack added armed security guards at every school, with one point of entry, and a focus on mental illness – a hallmark of school shooters – need to be addressed.
“I guarantee you this kid didn’t just wake up one day and say I want to kill my grandma,” Pollack said. “There had to be red flags that went off and it’s a big problem.”
School districts and governments must determine who is “mentally sick” and “evil” and “put it on their backgrounds so they can’t purchase a rifle,” he said.
“There’s gun laws in place, there’s so many gun laws in place,” Pollack insisted. “If they don’t have a background, not one gun law is going to make a difference. You can’t focus on guns. Nothing gets done.”
As Gateway Pundit observed Thursday, in July 2020, led by Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), top Democrats introduced legislation to remove police from schools, at a time when the “Defund the Police” initiative had become a central focus for radical Democrats.
“Police shouldn’t be in schools,” Murphy said. “There are plenty of better ways to ensure that our schools are safe places to learn.”
Because more black and other minority students are disciplined or arrested, Murphy said the presence of police officers in schools is “contributing to a civil rights crisis we must address.”
Yet, disturbing videos of the Uvalde shooting scene show parents outside the school begging police to rush inside to “protect the kids.”
Stressing there is “nothing partisan” about his School Safety Act, Johnson observed the Trump administration actually set up the online school safety clearinghouse at SchoolSafety.gov.
“It’s up and it’s operating,” he said. “So all this bill does at this point is serve as a model for what’s happening. All this bill does now is codify it to make sure this clearinghouse stands the test of time – that it will always be there to provide the best practices on school safety.”
Johnson said, in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, he spoke with the parents of the Parkland victims and asked, “What would you like me to do?”
“They’ve been trying to get this codified, passed into law, for four years,” the senator continued. “I can’t explain why it’s not law. Just last month, the Senate passed the Pray Safe Act, which basically took the Luke and Alex School Safety Act, and applied it to churches. That passed by unanimous consent. No objection. I tried to attach this bill to that bill, but for whatever reason, somebody is objecting. I have no idea why. None.”
Johnson asked for his bill to be passed by unanimous consent as well.
But, in rejecting it, Schumer tweeted, “The truth: There were officers at the school in Texas. The shooter got past them.”
“We need real solutions—We will vote on gun legislation starting with the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act,” he vowed.
“The American people are tired of moments of silence, tired of the kind words offering thoughts and prayers,” Schumer said, reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
That report also noted Schumer said he will bring forward the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act “to begin considering gun safety amendments,” and might consider Johnson’s proposal at some point during that process.
Appearing on Fox Business Channel’s Cavuto Coast to Coast, Johnson responded to host Neil Cavuto’s question about the possibility of limiting guns sold to individuals under the age of 21.
Wisconsin @SenRonJohnson joins Neil as he asks the Senate to pass the Luke and Alex School Safety Act: “My legislation would have actually directed people, schools to government grants so they can fund some of these school safety initiatives.” pic.twitter.com/krNFL8ZtfY
— Neil Cavuto (@TeamCavuto) May 26, 2022
“From my standpoint, gun laws ought to be basically state-based, let states decide what they want to do in their particular states,” the senator responded. “And those gun laws we already know vary widely around the country. That’s really the place to enact these things, as opposed to some national standard, which – let’s be realistic – I don’t think there’s a solution here in the federal government.”
“There are very few solutions here in the federal government,” Johnson concluded. “I think the federal government either causes or exacerbates more problems than it ever solves.”
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Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Chuck Schumer” by Senate Democrats. CC BY 2.0.
