BELLEVUE, WA – Oregon State Sen. Ginny Burdick’s plan to sponsor legislation designed to make female teachers more vulnerable to abusive ex-spouses by specifically stripping away their right of self-defense on school campuses is a “new low in gun control extremism,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
Burdick, an anti-gun Portland Democrat, has announced that she will introduce a bill that would specifically authorize Oregon school districts to ban firearms on campus, even if a person has a concealed carry permit. While she has sponsored similar bills in the past, and all have been defeated, this one will be aimed at the rights of teachers like the one in Medford, who is fearful of an ex-spouse against whom she has a restraining order. That teacher has gone to court to force the Medford school district to live by state firearms law and the Oregon Constitution.
“Burdick’s hypocrisy is world-class,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “She has championed legislation to protect nursing mothers in the workplace, and to prevent discrimination against domestic partners. Yet, she obviously thinks single moms don’t need protection from abusive ex-spouses, nor is she the least bit concerned about discriminating against law-abiding Oregon female gun owners who happen to be teachers.”
“There is no evidence that a legally-armed teacher has ever harmed a single student in any school in America,” added CCRKBA Executive Director Mark A. Taff. “Indeed, I am reminded that an assistant principal at Mississippi’s Pearl High School retrieved a gun from his vehicle and confronted school shooter Luke Woodham there in 1997, holding him at gunpoint until police arrived.”
“Sen. Burdick is a text book example of the socially-prejudiced liberal,” Gottlieb observed. “She would stand up for a woman’s right to choose on every issue except when it comes to the choice of personal protection. In this case, she obviously feels women like the teacher in Medford should simply submit to fear and perhaps being victimized in the work place. What a horrible, demeaning double standard.”