Republicans supported the bill; Democrats voted against it.

The bill, LD 1429, was offered by Sen. David Burns, R-Whiting. It would have allowed local school districts to decide by a district-wide referendum and school board approval whether they wanted to arm select staff members.

The bill would have required those selected to carry firearms to be willing to do so, to be permitted under the state’s concealed-handgun law, undergo a criminal background check and a psychological screen and attend special training offered at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.

Burns, a retired state police detective, said he offered the bill because police response times to some of the schools in his rural Senate District 29 in Washington County were longer than an hour.

“It may take even longer for a backup officer to arrive, and indeed, a matter of hours for a properly trained tactical response team to get to that location,” Burns said during a floor speech Tuesday. “Is that the same for your community? I hope not.”

And while the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December reignited the debate on public school security, Burns said he had been contemplating the legislation for more than two years.

He thought the measure was safe, practical and would allow a trained individual to “stand in the gap” when an armed assailant attacked a school, buying time until a trained officer could arrive, he said.

“I had no intention of expecting a teacher or a staff member to take the place of a professional police officer, although I have met a lot of those people in that profession that I would have gladly had stood beside me in my law enforcement career,” Burns said. Still, he said, even the bravest teachers and other staff who attempted to stop the Sandy Hook shooter had no chance.

“The only real response to deadly force is deadly force,” Burns said. “Facing an armed killer without a weapon is futile and can only add to the number of lost lives.”

Democrats opposing the bill said Maine public schools already can have armed police officers inside schools in the form of resource officers. They said the impact of arming teachers or other staff would have a negative psychological impact on students, and guns in schools would increase the chance of a firearms-related incident or accident.

Sen. Stan Gerzofsky said school resource officers were “fully trained, not to the minimum standard but to the maximum standard.”

He said the 18-week course police officers in Maine complete, including training in tactical and active-shooter scenarios, couldn’t be replicated in an abbreviated course for school staff. 

The Legislature approved police officers in schools years ago “to allow our communities to protect our most valuable, which are our children,” Gerzofsky said. “This bill I don’t believe enhances that at all. The things that are available in this bill are already available under current law.”

Gerzofysky said any school in Maine could hire a community resource officer regardless of how rural it is. Barring that, he said, schools could contract with county sheriffs for deputies.

Burns said the cost of doing that for most schools would be prohibitive and that it could cost a school district between $80,000 and $100,000 with pay and benefits per school to hire fully trained police officers.

Sen. Chris Johnson, D-Somerville, said the bill included provisions requiring new liability insurance for schools that chose to arm their staffs.

“There’s a reason,” he said, “because there is the possibility opened up by what this bill allows for adverse outcomes. That’s my biggest worry with this. What we are talking about is putting guns in schools in the hands of not fully trained officers.”

The legislation was opposed by the Maine Education Association, the statewide teachers’ union. The state’s association of school superintendents remained neutral on the bill.

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How your senator voted on LD 1429

A yes vote was in favor of rejecting the bill.

* Sen. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston: Yes

* Sen. John Cleveland, D-Auburn: Yes

* Sen. John Patrick, D-Rumford: Did not vote

* Sen. James Hamper, R-Oxford: No

* Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls: No

* Sen. Thomas Saviello, R-Wilton: No