Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, believes that states and localities should make their own well-informed decisions about guns in schools rather than making a blanket one-sized-fits-all federal policy. But you wouldn’t know it from how most media outlets are covering comments DeVos made about guns during her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
“Betsy DeVos says guns in schools may be necessary to protect students from grizzly bears,” a headline at ThinkProgress reads.
The Washington Post took a different angle, but still wasn’t accurate: “Do guns belong in schools? Trump’s education pick declines to take a stand.”
Politicians got into the act too, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeting, “DeVos responds to @ChrisMurphyCT with support for Trump plan to get rid of gun free zones; cites grizzly bears as reason for guns in schools.”
DeVos responds to @ChrisMurphyCT with support for Trump plan to get rid of gun free zones; cites grizzly bears as reason for guns in schools pic.twitter.com/EPcocq8an4
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 18, 2017
Here’s the full context of the conversation.
“I think that’s best left for states and locales to decide,” DeVos said after Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., asked if guns had any place in or around schools. “I would refer back to Senator Enzi, and the school he was talking about in [Wyoming]. I would imagine there, that there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies.”
Murphy didn’t seem concerned about the grizzlies or find it worth mocking, since he immediately moved on and asked, “If President Trump moves forward with his plan to ban gun-free school zones, will you support that proposal?”
DeVos said she would support what Trump does. “But if the question is around gun violence and the results of that, please know that my heart bleeds and is broken for those families that have lost any individual due to gun violence.” And that was the end of Murphy’s question time.
First of all, DeVos did not say that we need guns in all of our schools, or even in any of our schools. She said it shouldn’t be the federal government’s place to decide. She used grizzlies in rural areas as one example for why a school might choose to have guns. By no means did she suggest that urban or suburban schools should have guns to protect them from grizzlies.
If Murphy wouldn’t have cut her off, perhaps she’d have given some reasonable examples of why guns might be needed in suburban or urban schools. Either way, she made it clear she thinks it’s a decision for state and local governments to make.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
