Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam does not support President Trump’s suggestion to provide bonuses to teachers who carry guns in the classroom.
“I strongly disagree with that,” Northam, a Democrat, told reporters at an event for the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C.
“We don’t go into the classroom to enforce the law,” he said. “We go to teach. So, that’s not an option that I would find acceptable.”
Northam, who is a physician, noted that he has taught at the medical school level and that his wife is also a teacher.
Trump has proposed allowing more people in school carry guns, whether teachers, coaches, or administrators, as a solution to stop someone with a weapon who has entered a school to carry out a mass shooting. A law like this could result in additional funding from Congress for training purposes and to purchase firearms.
Trump has also pledged to take three steps to address gun violence and school safety, including background checks, a bump stock ban, and raising the age limit to buy rifles to 21.
Northam, who was sworn in as Virginia’s governor in January, had run in part on promoting “common-sense” gun control measures. He had introduced several pieces of legislation that restricted gun ownership, all of which were defeated by the legislature. One of the bills would have banned bump stocks, the device use in the Las Vegas massacre that accelerates the rate of shooting for a semiautomatic firearm so it can mimic the behavior of an automatic firearm. He also supported legislation that would have allowed localities to ban guns at certain events.
“I have always promoted responsible gun ownership,” Northam told reporters, speaking at the Canadian Embassy. Virginia faced a mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, in which the shooter killed 32 people, and as a Virginia state senator Northam introduced several bills that would have set additional restrictions on gun ownership.
Northam expressed optimism that states or the federal government may be able to make some changes.
“It is time for people on both sides of the aisle to sit down at the table and let’s find something that we can agree on,” he safd, citing the example of starting from the agreement of responsible gun ownership, and moving forward from that place.
Northam said he believed last week’s mass shooting in Florida had the potential to gin up enough support for more action because so many students and teachers were speaking out.
“I do commend the youth and the energy we are seeing coming out of Florida right now,” Northam said. “That’s not going away, and it shouldn’t go away. Our children go to school every day. We expect them to be safe, to be educated, and we expect them to come home in the evening.”
