CMS disappointed in school gun vote

After sorting through a lot of bleak budget news early this week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders hoped they'd win their fight to keep guns out of school parking lots.  But Tuesday night legislators approved House Bill 937 with the clause intact that allows people with concealed handgun permits to keep those guns in locked compartments of vehicles on school grounds.

Sink

Jonathan Sink,  CMS' legislative liaison,  and Randy Hagler,  interim chief of the CMS Police Department,  had gone to Raleigh to argue that the bill does nothing to keep schools safe,  even in the scenario that some gun advocates envision in which an armed good guy takes out a school shooter.  "How does it make schools safer if guns are stored in locked cars?"  Sink asked.

He says Mecklenburg County has about 8,500 car break-ins a year,  which means guns sitting in school lots are guns that could end up stolen.

Police chiefs at all 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina system made a similar argument, according to the Associated Press.  The bill now heads to Gov. Pat McCrory for signing.

At a Wednesday news conference, Superintendent Heath Morrison said he hasn't seen the gun bill but opposes anything that allows guns on school property.  He said he believes police officers should be the only people carrying weapons at school.

And he noted that the day Hagler went to Raleigh to oppose allowing guns on school grounds was the day two CMS students got into a shootout with police in the parking lot of Hidden Valley Elementary.  A 17-year-old student died in the incident.  Morrison said that illustrates the danger of guns getting into the hands of students.