Alabama bill holding parents liable for children bringing guns to school rejected by committee

By Mike Cason | mcason@al.com

A bill to charge parents with a crime if their child takes a gun to school that was not secured at home was rejected by an Alabama House committee this morning.

Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, said the intent was to make schools safer and described her bill as “pro-school” and pro-child” instead of a gun control measure.

Drummond said she is a gun owner and that she was careful to keep her firearm locked up when when she had legal custody of a minor for three years.

Drummond noted an incident two weeks ago, when a gun discharged inside the backpack of a second grader at a Huntsville elementary school.

But several members of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee said that although they supported Drummond’s intent, they did not support holding parents criminally liable.

Drummond’s bill would have made the crime a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $6,000 if a parent or guardian failed to “reasonably secure” a gun at home that their child took to school.

“Reasonably secure” is defined as including, but not limited, to “storing a firearm using a trigger lock or in a locked box or gun safe that requires a key, numerical or alphanumerical combination, or fingerprint to open.”

Rep. Tim Wadsworth, R-Arley, said he did not think that legal burden was appropriate for parents, partly because households face different circumstances.

“You’ve got a lot of divorced parents,” Wadsworth said. “You’ve got a lot of parents that have joint custody. And you’ve got some wayward children that do those things.”

Drummond said, “I would love to fix the situation of the parents’ household. We can’t fix that.”

Drummond said mental illness and bullying are problems that raise the risk of gun violence in schools. She said her bill is a reasonable safeguard.

“It doesn’t take away anybody’s gun right or 2nd Amendment right. It simply says, lock it up,“ Drummond said.

Drummond has sponsored the same bill the last two years.

She said an incident at LeFlore High School last year reinforced the message that the bill is needed.

According to police, a 16-year-old girl fired a handgun and caused injuries to two other students.

Rep. Russell Bedsole, a Republican who is a major with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department, said lawmakers should not establish a legal standard for gun storage that applies to all households. Bedsole said when he was a child he knew his grandfather kept a gun in his bedside table.

“I think what’s reasonable in some homes is not reasonable in another,” Bedsole said. “I knew where my grandfather’s weapon was and I didn’t go get it and take it to school.

“I understand we’ve got a problem there, but that problem goes beyond the weapon and where we’re storing it. There’s a problem inside the home that we need to address. Bigger problem than I think any of us can accomplish today.”

Some of the Democrats on the committee expressed support for Drummond’s bill. Rep. TaShina Morris, D-Montgomery, thanked Drummond for the legislation. But Republican’s hold 11 of the 15 seats on the committee.

The committee rejected Drummond’s bill on a voice vote.