Assemblyman Donnelly proposes school marshall plan

Jan. 19, 2013

By Katy Grimes

I had a chance to talk with Assemblyman Tim Donnelly on Thursday, which is always interesting. He’s one of a handful of lawmakers who tells it like it is. And, then he puts his plans into action.

We discussed President Barack Obama’s 23-point gun control plans and agreed that the president is politicizing the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in order to impose an anti-Second Amendment agenda. Ironically, nothing currently proposed by the President would have prevented the tragedy, or any of the other recent attacks. Donnelly said that all the President’s plan will do is make it more expensive, and more difficult for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment right.

Donnelly told me that he is introducing a bill to create a school marshal program, modeled after the highly successful air marshals program. This would allow teachers to volunteer to receive gun training and qualify to carry concealed weapons. The idea is to have teachers fully trained, but not let anyone know which teachers have gone through the training.

Criminals typically avoid houses where there is a German Shepherd, an alarm system, or a gun owner. The chances of an insane school shooter getting gunned down by a teacher may do the same.

“We should be celebrating the incredibly heroic teacher, Vicki Soto, instead of focusing on taking guns away from citizens,” Donnelly said. “In light of the incredible bravery and selfless heroism of teachers like Vicki Soto, it would be morally wrong to leave the next teacher confronted by a deranged killer defenseless.  Donnelly said.

“We should be holding criminals accountable, not guns,” Donnelly said. Donnelly said the President going after citizens was certainly not about protecting anyone. Donnelly said that the president’s plan will only target people who have followed the law and register their weapons.

“We must not criminalize responsible, freedom-loving citizens exercising their natural right as Americans,” he said in a story yesterday in the Victorville Daily Press.

Donnelly has been consistent in saying “the purpose of the Second Amendment is to defend freedom against tyranny.”