A state Senate bill aimed at better safeguarding students by allowing county sheriffs to train school employees in gun safety passed Tuesday afternoon on a party line vote in the Senate State Affairs committee. Senate Bill 005 now heads to the chamber floor for consideration.

The bill drew some 30 witnesses to Tuesday’s hearing. Testimony see-sawed for and against and stretched out for more than two hours. That the basic premises of the bill and the motivation behind its introduction seemed up for grabs was another sign, if any were needed, of how fraught gun politics remain in the state.

“Today we resume the intricate dance between those who believe guns make us safer and those who believe that gun violence is a major threat to public safety,” said Eleanor Cabell, who spoke in opposition to the bill. The sides were stepping to different tunes.

Senate Majority Leader Chris Holbert, a Republican from Parker, argued that, for school districts that were interested, the bill would seek to establish a basic level of training for men and women already allowed to carry guns on school grounds. He pointed out that, as the law stands now, there is no standard. On one end, private security guards receive no required training. On the other end, county sheriffs receive extensive training, a 21-week course in gun use that includes high speed driving practice and court testimony.

“This bill asks how much training should be required for people who are currently armed and for people who could be armed with the permission of the school. And it leaves it up to the county sheriffs and each of the 178 school districts or charter schools to decide for themselves – the same as current law,” he said. “We’re not issuing a mandate, we’re not requiring there be any more guns in schools.

“Right now, a school district in Colorado can hire a teacher to provide private security – or a principal or other school staff – and there is no training required, unless the school board decides it wants to require training,” Holbert said. “This bill doesn’t change any of that.”

Many witnesses who opposed to the bill, however, saw it either as a Trojan horse proposal or as a misguided one born from pro-gun ideology. In both cases, they believed it would result in an uptick of the number of guns in classrooms across the state. With each additional gun, they argued, would come greater risk of tragic accident. What’s more, a gun in a classroom or strapped to the waist of a hallway guard delivers a lesson reinforced each day that promotes violence as a solution to violence.

“The key issue here is the values statement,” said Denver Democratic committee member Lois Court before voting against the bill. She said lawmakers pass laws in part to “state what we collectively believe is right.

“In my mind … this is a bill that discusses a societal value,” she said. “Passing this law seems to me to be saying this is what we believe, it would be making a statement that more guns in schools make our schools safer. I disagree. I don’t believe it. So I’ll be a no vote.”

Holbert seemed quietly exasperated as testimony progressed.

“Guns are already in schools,” he said after the meeting. “People who don’t want guns in schools certainly have the right to advocate for that. But that’s current law. That’s not this bill.”

Late last year, the Hanover school board in rural southeast Colorado made headlines for voting to allow school employees to voluntarily carry firearms on school grounds after undergoing training. Supporters of the proposal cited the need to protect against school shootings and violence tied to local marijuana grows, the AP reported.

Any proposal linking guns and schools is sure to raise political temperatures – and that may be especially true in Colorado.

The state has been marked by high-profile mass shootings – at Littleton’s Columbine High School in 1999 and at Aurora’s Century 16 movie theater in 2012. Gun policy battles now erupt on a regular schedule and, as elsewhere in the nation, they fuel partisan political stances. Indeed, the state legislative landscape suffered a shock in 2013 after angry voters recalled two Democratic senators for supporting stricter state gun laws passed in the wake of the Aurora shootings. Gun policy debate has been supercharged ever since.

Witnesses in support of Holbert’s bill included Dave Kopel, gun policy specialist at the libertarian Independence Institute, and Dudley Brown, conservative politics string-puller and the executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

Witnesses opposed to the bill included relatives of victims killed in mass shootings and members of the national gun safety group Moms Demand Action.

The bill will likely pass soon in the Republican-controlled Senate and die quickly next month in the Democratic-controlled House.

*This post has been updated with Eleanor Cabell’s full and accurate quote.

– john@coloradostatesman.com