Arizona, where masks in classrooms are bad, but guns in classrooms are ... good?

Welcome to Arizona, where Republican lawmakers would ban masks in classrooms but welcome firearms.

Yep.

If it wasn’t for the Arizona Supreme Court, the Republicans who control the Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey would have banned school mask mandates meant to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. But because the prohibition was tucked into the state budget bill the court tossed the measure for violating language in the state constitution that says each bill can cover only one subject.

Meantime, Republican lawmakers now are pushing bills through the Legislature that would allow firearms onto any of the state’s institutions of higher learning.

A pistol instead of a pocket protector

One proposal, House Bill 2489, allows anyone over the age of 18 to obtain a concealed carry permit. The other, Senate Bill 1123, prohibits “the governing board of any university, college or community college from prohibiting the possession of a concealed weapon by a concealed weapon permit holder.’’

Yeah, I know, the anti-mandate fanatics and gun nuts will say I’m comparing apples to oranges because in one instance I’m talking about all students and in the other I’m only talking about college students.

Wrong.

In each instance I’m talking about … students. Whom the politicians running Arizona do not seem to hold in high regard.

Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich – now using his office as a campaign tool for his U.S. Senate campaign – filed a legal brief with the Arizona Supreme Court arguing that the court didn’t have the authority to rule on the anti-mask mandate. The court dismissed his lame argument.

Acting to prevent kids from being safe

Gov. Doug Ducey then staged an end around on a mask ban, offering federal COVID-19 relief money to schools that do NOT have mask requirements. When the feds threatened to take back that money over Ducey’s ploy, the governor sued.

All this in order to prevent schools from trying to keep students safe.

And they’re doing it again in the Legislature with the bills aimed at allowing concealed weapons on campus.

Although, perhaps, “aimed at” isn’t the best way to phrase that.

Or is it?

Learning lessons in life or in death?

Not long ago, retired Mesa police detective Bill Richardson, in an op-ed for The Arizona Republic, explained the dangers and potentially awful consequences if an amateur with good intentions were to actually take out and use a handgun.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 45,222 individuals died from gun-related injuries in 2020.

Other studies demonstrate how each year roughly 500 individuals die from unintentional shootings.

There is no need for firearms to be allowed on campus grounds. None. These bills simply fill the irrational compulsion GOP lawmakers have to appease the gun lobby.

And for what?

The last thing we need is a tragic situation in which students attempting to learn the lessons required to succeed in life wind up teaching the rest of us an unnecessary lesson about death.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Masks in Arizona classrooms are bad. But guns in class are good