Until recently, teachers in Ohio were allowed to carry weapons to school but they had to take the same 700 hours of instruction as peace officers in the state.

The New York Times reported that a new Ohio law allows teachers to carry weapons with no more than 24 hours of training.

Teachers and other school employees in Ohio will be able to carry firearms into school with a tiny fraction of the training that has been required since last year, after Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law on Monday.

While employees have for years been allowed to carry guns on school grounds with the consent of the local school board, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that state law required them to first undergo the same basic peace officer training as law enforcement officials or security officers who carry firearms on campus — entailing more than 700 hours of instruction.

That ruling, Mr. DeWine said on Monday, had made it largely impractical for Ohio school districts to allow staffers to carry firearms.

Under the new law, a maximum of 24 hours of training will be enough for teachers to carry guns at school, though the local board will still need to give its approval. Twenty-eight states allow people other than security personnel to carry firearms on school grounds, with laws in nine of those states explicitly mentioning school employees, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Polls in recent years show that a majority of Americans, and a large majority of teachers, oppose the idea of arming teachers…

The governor emphasized that local school districts would still have the ability to prohibit firearms on school campuses. “This does not require any school to arm teachers or staff,” he said. “Every school will make its own decision.”

Last week, Justin Bibb, the mayor of Cleveland, said his city would continue to ban teachers and other non-security employees from carrying guns in schools.

Ohio’s new law, which moved suddenly and swiftly through the State Senate after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, passed on June 1 along roughly partisan lines, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against it. The bill passed the House in November, also on a nearly party-line vote; one Republican joined the Democrats in voting against it.

In a speech on the Senate floor, State Senator Niraj Antani, a Republican, dismissed the “crocodile tears” of lawmakers who saw the bill as dangerous, arguing that armed teachers would deter school shootings and calling the bill “probably the most important thing we have done to prevent a school shooter in Ohio.”

A sizable opposition against the bill had grown against it during its journey through the Legislature. Hundreds packed into committee rooms for the bill’s hearings, with all but two or three speakers testifying against it. The opposition included gun control groups as well as teachers, school board members, police union representatives and police chiefs.

Robert Meader, who recently retired as commander of the Columbus, Ohio, Division of Police, called the training requirement in the bill “woefully inadequate,” arguing that it would “cause harmful accidents and potentially even needless deaths.”

The bill is the second major gun bill that Mr. DeWine, a Republican, has signed into law this year. The first, which went into effect on Monday, eliminates the requirement for a license to carry a concealed handgun.

Imagine this: a school shooter enters the building armed with an automatic assault weapon. Will teachers have equally powerful weapons? How terrifying will school be if teachers are carrying assault weapons? Terrifying not only for students, but for teachers and administrators.