LINCOLN- On Friday, the Nebraska Legislature's Education Committee heard testimony related to the possibility of teachers carrying firearms on school grounds and the allowing of off-duty police officers to do the same. Although testifiers ranged from rural and private school officials, firearms experts, and security contractors, no urban teachers, union representatives, or school board members from Nebraska's largest cities were invited to testify.

Brewer, a gun rights advocate, said at the hearing that he had not yet settled on language for his next gun bill after eliminating training requirements for the concealed carry of handguns this year. "We have not written a bill," he stated. Much of Brewer's push to examine state laws governing guns in K-12 schools seemed to center around Sen. Steve Halloran's LB343 from 2019, which would have trained school staff to carry concealed handguns.

Brewer said he requested the interim study because he thinks Nebraska law prevents schools from adequately protecting children. "We don't have enough money to put school resource officers in every school," said Brewer, "For those schools...that don't have that advantage, I think we owe it to them to do what we can." Many of the testifiers argued that the decision of whether or not teachers can carry firearms should be left up to each individual school board.

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