Arizona bills would allow concealed guns in restaurants, train teachers to use firearms

Republican lawmakers in Arizona are pushing a series of bills they say will strengthen both school safety and Second Amendment rights by requiring firearm education at public schools and allowing more firearms in public places.

The bills would allow people to carry concealed guns in restaurants, require public schools to teach children about firearm safety every year and train school teachers and staff to use guns and treat bullet wounds.

Seak Smith with Women For Gun Rights AZ is supporting the bills. She acknowledged that many children die from firearms, but said restricting gun use isn’t the answer.

“We can't go around and prevent, you know, you can't legislate every single death that happens in the world,” she said.

Smith’s father fought against the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia which seized people’s firearms to prevent rebellion. So, Smith said her family history makes it important to her to have the freedom to protect herself.

“It becomes a really ridiculous argument when you start to drill down on every single type of death. I mean, people die from hiking and they fall. I mean, there's so many ways people die and we can't prevent every single death, but we can educate and we can, you know, install safety measures that will prevent these types of deaths,” she said.

Women for Gun Rights AZ and the lawmakers sponsoring the bills argue that educating students about gun use and showing teachers how to use weapons is the best way to protect students.

Cheryl Todd is a part of the organization and said in rural areas especially, having trained teachers armed with weapons is key.

“You have staff right there that can handle these things until that help, that level of help arrives, that is a game-changer for everybody and is definitely saving lives across our nation,” Todd said.

According to an annual analysis by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, firearms have been the number one cause of death for children and teens in the U.S. since 2020. The data is collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The majority of those deaths were homicides and suicides.