Park County District #6 school board in Cody approved a policy allowing employees to carry firearms to the second reading. By a 5-2 vote, trustees are moving closer to implementation.
During a meeting Tuesday night, over 20 members of the community spoke to the board. The majority were against the policy expressing that guns should stay in the hands of law enforcement.
But Flint Flesher, a father in Park County District #6 and the owner of Alpine Firearms Training, supports the policy. He said it’s important to have both infrastructure security measures and concealed carry. Flesher said the naysayers are just lacking an understanding of the policy.
“All active shootings that have happened, the majority have happened in gun free zones,” Flesher said. “People bring up statistics and stuff on that but we don't know what would happen because there weren’t firearms there to find out what would happen. I do know that places that aren’t gun free zones, typically people don't walk in to try to do a shooting.”
Trustees William Struemke and Scott Weber commented that they want to see the vote go all the way to implementation. While trustees Stefanie Bell and Tom Keegan voted no on the policy.
The board chair, Kelly Simone, said it would be premature and unfair to vote against the policy since the board has sent out a community survey which doesn’t close until February 28. The other trustees agreed. The earliest the policy can be implemented is in April.