(Radio Iowa) – A bill creating standards for arming school employees has made it past a legislative deadline this week. The bill would establish a state permit for school staff who volunteer to carry weapons in school buildings. They would have to pass an annual background check and go through training. Representative Phil Thompson, a Republican from Boone, is chairman of the House Public Safety Committee. Thompson says the bill is a response to events like the deadly school shooting in Perry last month.

“Response time in a desperate situation like this really is everything,” Thompson says, “and so we need to give districts and staff the tools they need to protect our children and protect themselves.” The bill grants qualified immunity to school districts that allow staff to carry guns. That’s a response to insurance companies that threatened to drop coverage for districts that tried to do it in the past. Representative Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, a Democrat from Ames, says having guns in schools is a risk.

“Putting more children in the line of fire is frightening,” Wessel-Kroeschell said. The bill originally said the state’s 11 largest school districts had to have at least one school resource officer or private security guard in every high school, but the committee changed the bill to let school boards to opt-out of that requirement.