Oregon Gun-Rights Activist Wrote a Bill to Shield the Bend Parent Who Shot a School Attacker From Prosecution

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BEND, OR — Three weeks after a 16-year-old former student shot his way into Silver Rail Elementary School and killed a teacher and three children, an Oregon gun-rights activist says he has drafted legislation to protect the parent who stopped the attack from facing criminal charges.

Derek LeBlanc, founder of the Oregon Gun Owners Action League, wrote in a post on the group’s website dated Oct. 19 that he drafted the bill on Friday, Oct. 16, the day after the shooting. He describes it as a measure that would modify the Oregon Revised Statutes that, in his words, “created potential criminal penalties for the hero in Bend” and would “also give civil protections for the defenders.” He did not publish the bill text with the post.

I previously covered the Oct. 15 attack and the Bend father who followed the shooter into his daughter’s school. Police say a 16-year-old former student went into the school and opened fire inside a special needs classroom after shooting his way through locked doors. Teacher Megan Lambert, 25, was killed, along with students Rhoam Summer, 5, and two other children, ages 8 and 11. A second teacher, Becky Drury, was shot and survived. A 7-year-old girl was also wounded and survived.

Cassidy Schutz, a certified learning specialist, confronted the attacker. She threw her cellphone at him, tackled him, and wrestled for control of the weapon. Her struggle created the opening. Kaylub Giamanco, a 36-year-old parent driving home for lunch, saw the shooter at the school his daughter attends. He grabbed a legally permitted firearm from his car. He climbed in through an open window, opened the classroom door, and fired, dropping the attacker. The shooter was killed. Giamanco later called Schutz “a real true hero” and said her actions gave him an opening to shoot the attacker.

On Nov. 3, authorities released Giamanco’s 911 call. In a little over a minute, he tells the operator there is “someone with a gun” at the school and says, “I have a gun and I will shoot them right now.” The operator asks him to wait for an officer. “I’m about to go kill this kid,” he says. Seconds later he reports the shooter entering the building and firing, and the call ends.

That sequence is what LeBlanc’s proposal is built around. He argues that Giamanco was forced to break the policies and laws put in place to prevent this kind of tragedy, and he says he hopes prosecutors decline to charge him. No charging decision against Giamanco has been announced.

LeBlanc frames the proposal as part of a broader push. In the same post he calls for ending firearm-free zones at schools, certifying volunteer armed guardians modeled on an existing Texas program, and using Oregon’s concealed handgun license and public-safety training standards for vetting. He also makes claims I cannot independently confirm, including a reference to a CDC figure of up to three million defensive gun uses a year and an assertion that the shooter’s mother bought a firearm for her son; those statements are his.

More from USA Carry:

• Bend Father With a Concealed Carry Permit Followed a 16-Year-Old Shooter Into His Daughters’ Elementary School and Killed Him Before Police Arrived; Wyden Answers With Call for ‘Common Sense Gun Laws’
• Kentucky Legislature Overrides Governor’s Vetoes on Two Pro-Second Amendment Bills
• Ways to Lose Your Gun Rights
• New Florida Law Expands Concealed Carry Rights for Off-Duty Officers and Military Members
• Tennessee Governor Signs Law Protecting Renters’ Gun Rights — What Landlords Can and Can’t Do Starting in 2027

The policy fight he is stepping into is already live. A 2021 Oregon law lets school districts prohibit firearms on school property regardless of whether a person holds a concealed handgun license, and that provision is now at the center of the debate. According to the Oregon Capital Chronicle, Republican lawmakers moved within days of the shooting to revive school-safety bills that failed in the 2023 session, including measures on metal detectors, funded school security officers, and single secure entry points, while Democratic leaders declined to offer specific policy proposals and urged focus on the grieving community.

LeBlanc says ORGOAL has a second bill planned for the next legislative session to incentivize firearms training. I will continue tracking the proposal and any charging decision in the Bend case.

Read the original story: Oregon Gun-Rights Activist Wrote a Bill to Shield the Bend Parent Who Shot a School Attacker From Prosecution