Parents at a Tennessee private school where a mass shooter killed six people including three children were among dozens of people who were kicked out of a state House subcommittee meeting about a measure that will allow for more guns at schools, The Daily Beast reports.
Parents burst into tears as state Highway Patrol troopers escorted them from a meeting in which they’d been asked to testify, the report said.
Republican state Rep. Lowell Russell, who presided over the meeting, defended mass ejection of spectators who he claimed had persisted clapping, yelling, and holding signs against the orders of authorities, the report said.
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One woman shouted “this is not what democracy looks like” as a trooper escorted her from the meeting with his hands behind her back, according to the report, which notes she was carrying a sign that said “1 Kid > All The Guns.”
After the spectators were removed from the gallery the subcommittee passed House Bill 7064, which will allow anyone with an enhanced gun permit, such as police officers (on-duty and off-duty) or members of the military (active duty and retired) to possess and carry a handgun at any public school campus facility or bus.
Sarah Shoop Neumann, the mother of a Covenant School survivor, who testified against the measure through tears according to the report, blasted the law in an interview with The Tennessean.
“The presence of firearms in schools is something I cannot speak against more strongly,” Neumann told the news outlet.
“Teachers in this state already lack support in the state in terms of funding, staffing and being overwhelmed. And you want to arm them?”