Kline to hold hearings on school shootings

Posted at 9:34 AM on February 14, 2013 by Brett Neely (2 Comments)
Filed under: U.S. House

WASHINGTON - Most of the congressional reaction to the December massacre of 26 students and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School has focused on the Democratic-controlled Senate. On Thursday, House Republicans announced that the Education Committee, led by Minnesota U.S. Rep. John Kline, would hold hearings on school safety later this month.

The hearing is scheduled for Feb. 27 in Washington and, according a committee press release, will focus on "how schools prepare and recover from threats of violence." No witnesses have yet been announced.

"We have a responsibility to examine what is and is not working when it comes to school safety," said Kline in a statement.

By making the hearings about school safety rather than gun control, House Republicans are signaling that they are not interested in pursing the more ambitious agenda laid out in the Senate, which could include universal background checks for gun purchasers and limitations on large ammunition magazines.

Comments (2)

Hi Brett !

Good reporting. Hmmm ... I wonder about the internal debate over States Rights and the Federal Government interference ?

Chairman Kline has opposed the Keeping Students Safe Act because it would tell the states what to do .... and the reaction from President Obama's State of the Union proposal regarding incentives to states to fund early pre-school was met by this response from Virginia Foxx (R-NC-07), who is Chairman Kline’s roadblocker on the House Education Subcommittee, “States are doing fine on pre-K. They don’t need the federal government stepping in.”

Now, a question … has Chairman Kline received a response from Attorney General Holder from his letter ? Is that response available for the taxpayers to review ?

It is rather ironic that Chairman Kline issued a “ObamaCare Burden Tracker” complaining about all the time and data involving healthcare and in this letter, the Chairman asks for five year history and evaluations of various programs … that is not a burden to produce for Chairman Kline but the same type of information that would involve healthcare is ? Oh and if you looked at the “ObamaCare Burden Tracker”, you would notice that some of the “burdens” were for proposals that Chairman Kline and other Republicans promoted (I.e. small business tax credits).

Posted by Mac Hall | February 15, 2013 7:39 AM

In the interest of the US Constitution, Congressman Kline, how about stacking the witness list with proponents of states' rights? This, as most things should be, is a matter for individual states, not the federal gov't.

Posted by halfnorsk | February 15, 2013 12:28 PM

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