Husted talks red flag laws, arming teachers

Jun. 17—ASHTABULA — Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted have supported police in the state, Husted said Thursday during a visit to the Star Beacon.

"We have funded the police rather than defunded the police in Ohio," Husted said.

The administration has been aggressive about supporting law enforcement.

A bi-partisan group of U.S. senators recently announced a compromise bill which would include funding to help establish state red flag laws to allow police to take firearms from a person who has been deemed a threat to themselves or others.

Husted said he and DeWine worked hard to craft a law that would allow for due process and also give law enforcement and families the ability to remove a weapon from a person who was deemed a danger to themselves or others.

"We worked with a variety of groups, including Second Amendment advocates, law enforcement advocates, mental health professionals, to come up with an Ohio version that would allow for due process, but also give law enforcement and families ... the ability to remove weapons from the possession of somebody who went through that due process hearing and was deemed a danger to themselves or others," Husted said.

"We have supported those kinds of policies," he said. "A full-blown red flag law, we don't support that, but there are ways you can give people due process and also protect individuals from themselves or from harming others."

Husted said the administration's policy in general is to not restrict law-abiding citizens' access to firearms, but to use technology and other tools to keep guns out of the hands of those who don't have the legal right to own them.

DeWine recently signed HB 99, which allows school staff to be armed after 24 hours of training and eight hours per year of continuing education.

"I'll speak for myself. We didn't want to deny a teacher or administrator the opportunity to get the training and protect themselves in the event somebody would come into a school and want to inflict violence on them or their students," Husted said.

Local school districts get to choose whether or not they want to participate.

"I talk to many teachers and administrators, particularly from places like where I grew up," Husted said. "My high school has this, my school system has this, where it has its administrators and teachers, some of them get the training and have access to a firearm to defend themselves in case there was an attack on their school."