WA: Hochstatter Aims to Allow Guns in Class (1/16/2002)

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Hochstatter Aims to Ban Evolution, Allow Guns in Class Published in the Herald-Republic on Tuesday, January 15, 2002By TOM ROEDER YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC OLYMPIA -- Moses Lake Sen. Harold Hochstatter says he's looking to spark debate with a pair of controversial bills that would ban the teaching of evolution and allow teachers to pack guns in class. While admitting that neither proposal has a chance of becoming law, Hochstatter says he wants his fellow lawmakers to consider his logic behind the bills. Allowing teachers and administrators to being guns to class would make schools safer, while banning evolution would allow students to analyze the fallacies of science, he said. "It will cause a ruckus," predicted Hochstatter, an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2000 who sits on the Senate Education Committee. "I'm trying to raise awareness with these." Hochstatter, whose 13th District covers Grant and Kittitas counties and the northern reaches of Yakima County including Terrace Heights, was preparing Monday to introduce the bills later this week. Keeping schools safe is a priority for Hochstatter, whose hometown of Moses Lake was shocked on Feb. 2, 1996, when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire in his junior high school algebra class. The shooting killed two students and a teacher. Hochstatter thinks an armed school employee could have stopped Loukaitis. "I think the bill is a good idea," he said. Other lawmakers and some school administrators are dubious. Seattle's Democratic Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney said shootings like the one in Moses Lake show why its imperative to keep all guns out of school. "It's unconscionable," she said. "To bring a bill up to allow people to go to work with our children while carrying a firearm is ridiculous." East Valley School District Superintendent Rich McBride said there are ways to curb school violence without arming teachers. "If schools were to reach a level where it was necessary for teachers and administrators to be armed, there would be so much seriously wrong," he said. Hochstatter's proposal on evolution also isn't getting rave reviews. "There is other, important work to be done," said Gutierrez-Kenney, a Wapato native. Hochstatter said the evolution bill, which seeks to declare evolution "repugnant" to the state Constitution, is needed because schools aren't teaching competing theories on the origin of life, instead opting to teach the theory of evolution first fostered by Charles Darwin. In discussing the bill, he produced a Bible from his desk and read several passages from Genesis. "My main idea is raise awareness of the lies in the textbooks," he said. Neither measure stands a chance before the Legislature, which is burdened with fixing the state's $1.25 billion deficit and deciding how to fix highway gridlock. But Hochstatter said they will result in people talking about the controversies. "Before the bills get thrown out, we're going to throw all the dirt in the air," he said. And they aren't the only bills Hochstatter is sponsoring, just the most controversial. He also is pushing a widely supported bill aimed at keeping the state's primary balloting system, which is being challenged by Democrats and Republicans parties in a case before the state Supreme Court. http://www.yakima-herald.com/cgi-bin/liveique.acgi$rec=45270?home