Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) has introduced legislation that would further restrict who can possess a firearm near a California school.

Assembly Bill 424 would prohibit school district superintendents or other school officials from granting written permission to individuals who wish to carry a firearm near school grounds. With a few exceptions, California law bans the possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of public and private schools.

One of those exceptions: individuals with concealed carry permits who obtain written permission from a school official. Teachers and other school employees can bring guns to a school campus if they obtain such permission.

The question of whether guns should be allowed near schools resurfaced nationally when Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testified during confirmation hearings that schools in Wyoming may need firearms to defend against grizzly bears.

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President Trump has criticized “gun-free zones” generally and at one point vowed to “get rid of gun-free zones in schools”, before backing off of that pledge.

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Matt Levin was the data and housing dude for CalMatters. His work entails distilling complex policy topics into easily digestible charts and graphs, finding and writing original stories from data, yelling...