COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio politicians are grappling with how to better protect children after the mass shooting at a Minneapolis school on Wednesday, but members of each major political party have a different way of solving the issue.
On Friday morning, a Parma police officer was stationed outside St. Columbkille, a Catholic elementary and middle school in the Cleveland suburbs. School administrators called them out of an abundance of caution to provide security after the Minnesota tragedy.
It's a nightmare situation, one that former teacher of 30 years Sean Brennan couldn't talk about without tears.
“This was not something that I thought about when I was going through my teacher preparation," Brennan said. "When we became teachers, we didn't sign up to think that we were gonna have to potentially save our children from a shooter, for Pete's sake."
Two children are dead, while 17 others are injured after a shooter opened fire on praying kids, reigniting the long-standing debate on how to fix the country's problem of mass shootings.
Brennan, now a Democratic state lawmaker representing Parma, said the answer includes background checks and red flag laws.
"There's got to be some type of common-sense restrictions on owning guns," he said.
The City of Dayton’s deadly mass shooting in 2019 prompted Gov. Mike DeWine to push for new safety regulations, but the Republican-dominated legislature never took them up. On Thursday, we asked the governor what could be done now.
"We put together, a few years ago, in our public safety office, really a separate unit about school safety — and so we can go out to any school, give them an assessment," the governor said. "We also have some money that we can help schools [with]. It doesn't guarantee that we'll never have a shooting there, but what it does do is make sure that the school is prepared for anything."
Ohio can do better, he said, but knows he faces an uphill battle with his own party.
"Look, I’ve tried some different things," the governor said. "And we've not gotten them through."
What has gotten through includes safety protocols that state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) said don’t infringe on the Second Amendment, like providing funding for more security at religious buildings and allowing educators to be armed in class.
"We're going to have to provide more security," Cirino said. "We're going to have to utilize people that are available: retired policemen, retired military people who are properly trained and vetted."
Blaming firearms doesn’t get to the core problem, Cirino said.
"The guns are the method used by people that are psychologically impaired, okay?" Cirino said. "We need to address the core issue, which is the psychological impairment in the first place."
While other GOP leaders push the constitutional argument, Cirino is more focused on families being cognizant of their relatives.
"Parental responsibility for flagging potential problems earlier and monitoring their children better and alerting law enforcement when there seems to be something that has a high probability of becoming very violent," he said.
The Republican said he would "like to see" some "tighter restrictions" in terms of people getting guns, possibly waiting longer.
Brennan said that both his and Cirino’s solutions should go together.
"It's got to be an all arrows and the quiver type of approach," Brennan said.
Some Democrats and advocates are now pushing for a constitutional amendment to put gun safety regulations into law.
DeWine said he doesn't know what regulations he would call for at this time, with Brennan expressing disappointment that despite the governor's repeated interest in gun safety, he has signed each bill loosening gun restrictions sent to his desk.
RELATED: Ohio had 2 mass shootings in 1 weekend; GOP lawmakers say gun safety regulations won't fix issue
Because the legislature hasn't acted on gun reform, some cities are attempting to create ordinances that better protect their populations.
Both Columbus and Cincinnati have several gun safety regulations, but the state and Columbus are now in a legal battle:
RELATED: Ohio Supreme Court to decide if Columbus can enforce gun safety regulations
