Curtis Greer, brought his pistol with him to an Oregon High School Board meeting, violating their "no guns" policy. As it turns out, however, it is the school board's policy that is violating the law, and not Greer. Mr. Greer is licensed to carry a concealed firearm in Oregon, which gives him the right to carry into a school. Oregon also has a preemption law which prevents localities from trying to supersede state law.

While the Register Guard (Eugene, OR) tries to stay balanced, they still end up bolstering the anti-gun position, and showing some anti-gun bias, of which they probably aren't even aware. Check out this passage:

School officials were clearly troubled by the potential scenarios of allowing permit-holders to bring their guns to schools, as was Yvonne Atteberry. Her son, Ryan, was wounded in Kip Kinkel's 1998 shooting rampage at Thurston High School.

What's this? Someone (a permit holder perhaps) was permitted to bring a gun into the school and they went on a shooting rampage? That is what I originally thought, until I did a little research. A simple Google search turned up that Kip Kinkel was a 15-year old student of the school, who murdered two people and wounded 22. So, not only was Kip not a permit holder, he wasn't even legally allowed to own a handgun.

According to this report, Kip used a rifle and two handguns to gun down his fellow students. This other report notes that Kip was arrested the day before his rampage for illegal possession of a handgun in his school locker. He broke numerous laws, and yet the shooting still took place.

That lesson was lost on school officials though.

"To me this is an issue of safety," said [school official Yvonne] Atteberry, who queried Greer about competency requirements for permit holders. "This has nothing to do with the right to bear arms. But a school zone needs to be safe. I don't know why anybody would have to bring a gun to school."

Safety? How did all the gun laws that Kip Kinkel violated keep the school safe? Perhaps had Greer been there on that day, he could have used his concealed pistol to stop this butthole murderer before he even had a chance to commit his evil deeds.

Speaking of butts, Deputy Superintendent Steve Barrett proves he's a gun fearing wussie wussy. When questioned on what to do about permit holders that carry in schools, Barrett declared "The reality is if I saw the butt of a gun, 100 times out of 100 that person is going to be visiting with a police officer very soon."

I'm sure the police would love that. They have enough real crimes to address without having to be called out to calm Barrett's frightened nerves. Of course, the whole point of a concealed firearm is that it remain concealed. I wonder how Barrett feels about the butts of all the guns he didn't see.

The laughable part is that the school board is going to meet again to decide just what they should do. They claim their major concern is that they have several 21 year old high school students running around that could conceivably have a permit. Something tells me their "solution" to the "problem" will focus on taking away gun rights, rather than trying to graduate students out of high school before they reach the age of 21. Of course, they could just continue to violate state law.