If it became law, would the Wake County school board be willing to designate school safety marshals to have more armed people on school campuses?

As noted in today's article, state Sen. Stan Bingham said he expects rural as opposed to urban districts to embrace the new bill. The bill expands who can have firearms on campus, allowing school boards to either hire people or take applications from school employees or volunteers to be marshals.

Bingham's thinking is that rural districts, where it could take longer for law enforcement to respond, might be more willing to have a trained school employee or volunteer on campus with a gun.

After all the recent controversy about whether Wake County elementary schools should have unarmed or armed security, a new state Senate bill could affect the situation.

The "Public School Protection" bill introduced Thursday would authorize school boards to designate people to the newly created position of school safety marshal. These people, who could be school employees, school volunteers, or people specially hired for the position, would be authorized to carry firearms on campus.

These new marshals would have to complete a training program from the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission. Training would include the use of firearms, focusing on their use in a crisis situation that may involve unarmed bystanders.