Cobb County schools to let some non-officers carry guns

A Cobb County School bus moves on the street Friday, March 13, 2020, in Kennesaw, Ga. Georgia's second-largest school district on Thursday, July 14, 2022 approved a policy allowing some employees who aren't certified police officers carry guns in schools, but excluded teachers from those who can be armed. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

Georgia’s second-largest school district on Thursday approved a policy allowing some employees who aren’t certified police officers to carry guns in schools, but excluded teachers from those who can be armed.

The 4-2 vote by suburban Atlanta’s Cobb County school board split along partisan lines as opponents including gun control activists shouted “Delay the vote!” and “Shame!”

Georgia schools have been able to arm teachers and other personnel under a state law passed in 2014. After a 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, a handful of Georgia’s 180 districts, all with much lower enrollments, had approved policies to arm non-officers on campus. The move in the 106,000-student Cobb school district, one of the nation’s 25 largest, is explicitly a response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 students and two teachers last May.