Laura Carno, Executive Director of FASTERColorado.com, writes [via Ammoland.com]: There has been more national and local news coverage about arming school staff in the past two weeks than we have ever seen. Along with that record amount of coverage comes plenty of statements, from people opposed to the idea of armed school staff, that are either untrue or misleading. Here are the top eight armed school staff myths:
Myth: We shouldn’t require teachers to carry a gun
Fact: No district is requiring any school staffer to carry a concealed firearm. When a school district decides to authorize staff to carry, they ask for volunteers. And most districts get far more volunteers than they thought they would need.
There is not currently a requirement for anyone to carry, and no one is talking about making it a requirement. It would be an equally ludicrous suggestion to require all citizens to carry a concealed firearm, where concealed carry is legal.
Myth: Teachers don’t want to carry a gun, they want to teach
Fact: Many teachers already carry a concealed firearm in the rest of their lives. Absent being authorized to carry on campus, they must disarm for work.
Myth: We can’t train teachers to be police officers; they don’t have the right mindset.
Fact: No one is suggesting they be made into police officers. Authorized school staffers are extremely well trained in stopping an active killer, and stopping the bleeding for those who have been injured. Both of these skillsets will save lives.
When you talk to those school staffers who have been trained and carry on campus today, they are insulted by the suggestion that they don’t have the mindset to stop someone trying to kill their kids.
Myth: Cops won’t know who the bad guy is if teachers also have guns
Fact: A vast majority of these mass casualty events are over before law enforcement arrives. Staffers are trained on how to account for potential confusion in the 911 call, and how to advise law enforcement who the armed defender is. Schools that have armed staff already talk to their local law enforcement to advise them just who on campus is armed.
Myth: Kids will be frightened if they see their teacher with a gun
Fact: Kids don’t see the firearms. Armed school staff carry concealed, and no one is talking about them open carrying. Some school children interviewed actually appreciate armed staff because it makes them feel protected.
Myth: Our school has a School Resource Officer (SRO) or other armed and uniformed security. We are protected and don’t need additional armed staff
Fact: Having armed and uniformed security staff on campus is better than no one being armed. If a campus is large enough for an SRO, it’s a large campus. In the 2013 attack on Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO, there was an SRO on campus. When he confronted the killer, the coward killed himself. But it was not in time to save Claire Davis.
The SRO responded at full speed to the sound of gunfire, but in the 45-seconds it took him to get there, it was too late to save Claire. Had there been an armed staff member closer than 45-seconds away, they just may have been a chance to stop him before he was able to kill her.
In Parkland Florida, there was an SRO on campus and that was neither a deterrent nor a guarantee against the loss of innocent life.
Myth: Based on the low “hit rate” of law enforcement when they fire their service weapon, there is no way an armed teacher can hit the killer
Fact: Most of these killers commit suicide when confronted with an armed defender, without a shot being fired. And in a situation where an armed staff member would have to engage the killer, any chance to stop him is better than no chance to stop him.
In addition, FASTER trained school staff members pass a qualification test that exceeds the test that law enforcement is required to pass in their respective states.
Myth: Schools can’t afford school supplies, how can we expect them to afford guns and training?
Fact: Groups like FASTERSavesLives in Ohio and FASTERColorado in Colorado raise private money to help schools afford the very advanced training. Schools spend a lot of money on SROs, video systems, and other school security measures. Training armed school staff is a very small expense in comparison.
Wait til kids start selecting classes based on which teachers are carrying guns knowing they will be protected. Additionally, kids will run to the nearest teacher with a gun if something happens. Liberal heads will explode with atomic force! 😉
A pleasant thought, but if we stick to the proposed plan – the kids shouldn’t have any idea who is armed and who isn’t.
🤠
They’ll figure it out eventually. If I was a teacher I would let my students know that I will protect them to the death if necessary. First day of school in my intro speech they’d know it and believe it! The real solution is to completely remove the govt. from the education system. Private school or home school that is results based. No govt. mandated tests, but instead, testing can be done in the private sector. In each case, results in skills would be what educators/parents would be striving for. Plus, they would be much safer. If I ran/owned a private school I would require teachers to take a basic pistol course and offer incentive pay to get their LTC to carry in school. As a minimum, I’d like at least 10% of the teachers to carry. Additionally, there’d be vetted security staff patrolling the grounds. And by vetted I mean people who would run to the shooter and engage him/them. Preferably, people who have kids attending the school. I would also encourage parents to carry at school and all school functions. And I would probably not interact with other schools that did not have similar policies. All of this would be much easier to do if you ran your own home school!
That may sound like a sheepdog thing to do to tell your students that you are armed and will protect them, but in fact doing so makes both them and you less safe. Concealed carry works in part because you maintain the element of surprise in the event of an attack. Giving up your concealed status makes you the first target if the attacker is aware that you’re the first line of resistance. Once you’re out of the way your students are easy pickings.
Couldn’t agree more. Concealed is concealed and must stay that way. I feel the same about open carry. Why place a target on your back? I don’t care how good someone thinks their situational awareness is, open carry makes you the first target.
That may be one of the most ignorant things I have ever read on an internet forum.
I doubt teenagers engage in that kind of “cost vs benefit” analysis. More likely, they’re going to select classes based on requirements to graduate, teacher reputation, what classes their friends are taking, what class is that cute girl in, etc. Granted, it was a long time ago for me; we were more worried about our schools being pillaged by tribes of dinosaur-riding Vikings than we were about school shooters. Maybe kids today are different.
But even if kids did engage in that type of “cost vs benefit” analysis you imagine, they would realize that the odds of a school shooting are so low, that it shouldn’t make much of a difference, if any, on public policy.
The rarity of school shootings is something we forget in our desire to promote our agenda of letting teachers carry guns. It’s almost as though we believe that the frequency and intensity of which something is reported by the mainstream media somehow corresponds to reality.
Most CPL (Concealed Pistol License) holders are MORE proficient in the use of firearms than so-called “law enforcement” personnel. The successful “hit ratios” for CPL holders is also much higher. It is fact that CPL holders shoot more accurately, have much more control, and are, in general much better “shots” than just about any “law enforcement” personnel.
You see, “law enforcement” personnel have “qualified immunity” which shields them from prosecution for their “mistakes”–something that the civilian CPL community does not have. They can shoot with utter abandon as they have their “immunity” to shield them from prosecution. In addition, law enforcement-friendly prosecutors and “rubber stamp” grand juries have no interest in prosecuting “bad” cops. All one has to do is look at the number of (unjustified) shootings by “law enforcement” that get conveniently “swept under the rug” by the “system” ( prosecutors, judges, grand juries, and internal affairs).
If I had my way, ALL public officials, (not just “law enforcement”) would have NO official immunity, would be subject to all laws, just like the rest of us, and would be required to purchase an insurance “bond” as a condition of employment. Police “carve outs” would also be prohibited. Any law that citizens are subject to would also be applicable to “law enforcement”–no exceptions.
When Jeff Cooper ran Gunsite, he noticed differences in the motivation of his students. The most motivated were competitors willing to bust their asses for a trophy. Next were individuals genuinely concerned about self defense. Some had already been victims of violent crime. This group included police paying their own way and private citizens. The least motivated were police who had been sent by their agency with all expenses paid.
Most CPL holders may be great at shooting targets that don’t shoot back. Exceptions would be former military and those who train tactically. Yea, a lot of LE have a poor hit ratio, but I seriously doubt most CPL holders under the stress of engagement shoot better than most LE.
I beg to differ. Cops have the right to “spray and pray”–a tactic that WILL get a non-LEO locked up for murder or at least manslaughter. LEOs have “immunity” and friendly internal affairs and prosecutors–not like civilians.Most LEOs do not train with “dynamic targets” either.
CPL holders HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL because of liability.
I stand by my statements.
In a lot of cases, it has to do with the fact that many CPL/CCW holders practice at least once a month or more, while police officers are not given ammunition to practice due to budget retraints, and only shoot enough to qualify once or twice a year. I remember running into a female sheriff’s deputy, who appeared to me to have a desk job, who was terrified she would not qualify with the .40 Glock that she did not know how to handle. Despite her fears, she shot one box and left the range. Other officers in my community practice regularly and have a hit ratio greater than 50% in active shooter situations, even when “runnin’ and gunnin’.”
If you think IA is “friendly” to cops who are forced to use force, you don’t understand how any of this works…
IA is there for the interests of the agency alone. Period. If those interests involving burning the cop so they can pay a settlement and be done, that’s what their report will support…if those interests involve making the cop righteous so they can fight in court and not have to pay a settlement, that’s is what their report will support…if someone in management has a personal vendetta against the cop, IA will find something, anything, to burn him. None of this depends on if the cop acted correctly or not.
I sense you have a chip on your shoulder about cops…that is your right, and I sure you have a good reason…just know that what you probably don’t like is actually the bureaucratic bullshit that comes from management, political appointees, and the prosecutors
/attorneys office, most of which is illegal, corrupt, and disgusting. None of those entities like cops either, and the average cop is just trying to do his job while staying off unemployment and out of jail.
Your still not talking about most CCW permit holders. I know a lot of them and they simply don’t spend a lot of time tactical training. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for teachers and staff carrying CCW. I’d love to see law enforcement working with them to become very qualified. I’d even bet the Front Sight Training Facility would offer free or very low cost training for teachers and school staff.
“…I seriously doubt most CPL holders under the stress of engagement shoot better than most LE.”
But they shoot a HELL of a lot better than unarmed victims.
Human nature dictates that the person with all of the bragging about what they would do in a school shooting (this (especially) includes “law enforcement”) actually would cower in fear, while the 90 lb. armed teacher would reluctantly, but successfully “take out” the shooter. Being “forced” into a situation also forces one to act. There are many examples of persons, who one would normally think, would not be capable of acting in an extremely high-stress situation, but DO come out on top–stopping the threat, and saving lives.
All one has to do is look at the Medal of Honor recipients, who are almost always mild-mannered, initially reluctant to act, but DO act, and perform feats who most would think are normally beyond their capacity and capabilities–TRUE bravery in the heat of battle. The same applies to those civilians who act during school shootings.
Human nature has a habit of propelling (actually forcing) the normal, average person into a true “hero” and life saver, while showing the true nature of those we assign to protect us. A good example of our “protectors” cowering in fear is the deputies who FAILED TO ACT despite having all of the equipment necessary and the preferential laws on their side (that protect them from lawsuits and liability).
TRUE heroes ACT, while our “protectors” (failed to) REACT.
Absolutely, which is exactly why they should be armed in class if they wish.
yeah but what the way if then or butt!
It sounds like you’ve covered the obvious, but I can’t imagine the stuff SJWs will come up with to keep our children afraid, and their Moms worried, to promote more gov’t “to (ineffectively) protect” them.
I am a graduate of Arapahoe High School. It, like many other modern high schools, is too big and has too many potential points of entry for one school resource officer to adequately protect the school.
“Arming Teachers: Myths vs. Facts . . .”
FACT IS:
You have no effing idea which teachers are armed (have arms in their classrooms) NOT EVEN AT THE SCHOOLS WITH METAL DETECTORS.
NOTHING IS SO EASILY DEFEATED AS SECURITY MEASURES THAT DO NOT DYNAMICALLY CHANGE, EXCEPT FOR THE PEOPLE THAT RELY 100% ON THEM.
I have a better idea. Stop sending your children to a bunch of people who lack the mental acuity or fortitude to actually be guardians over the children they’re supposed to be guardians over.
Homeschool, or better yet, internet based schooling. Before you say “but kids need to socialize.” Sure they do, but not with a thousand other kids. That’s where extracurricular things like sports and martial arts and dance and the like come into play.
Our public schools are a joke anyway, they don’t teach kids how to find answers or question things anymore; they literally are government-funded (i.e. funded from our tax dollars) liberal indoctrination centers.
Here is food for thought, especially for those who support “public education” and rally about the doctrine of “socialization” that they claim is lacking in “homeschooled” children.
Let’s look at what “public education” has to offer:
1. Cliques and rampant bullying, quite often the victims of bullying punished more harshly for fighting back. Many times, bullies are part of a “protected” class–racial minorities, jocks, etc. There is strong official disapproval of students making friends outside their grade level. “Peer pressure”is used to push conformity.
2. Teachers that don’t teach reading writing and arithmetic. Pushing communist principles such as rabid environmentalism, blaming humanity for conditions beyond our control as well as pushing “communitarianism” (“it takes a village”)–actually communism. This also ties in with teacher-recommended feminizing and drugging (mostly boys) to make them “less fidgety” and more compliant–all for the “benefit” of the teacher.
3. Non-existent moral guidance…the communist concept of “values clarification”, allowing each student to set his own moral standard with no discussion permitted as to guidelines. A student dare not mention God or the Bible in “public school”–not permitted…discussing Islam is OK…even field trips to mosques are encouraged.
4. Sex education that normalizes homosexuality, transgenderism and other deviant practices, actually encouraging deviant behavior and downplaying and marginalizing heterosexuality and abstinence.
5. Insane zero tolerance practices, punishing students for pop-tarts shaped like guns or a student having an “unauthorized aspirin” or plastic butter knife. Of course, abortions and birth control are available without parental notification.
6. Lockdowns and backpack/locker searches by police utilizing “drug dogs”, getting the upcoming generation used to random unconstitutional searches. Quite often, students “roughed up” by “school resource officers”…just because they can…Lockdowns should be reserved for prisons–not schools…
Since these “socialization” practices seem to be the norm in our “public education” systems, parents who send their children to these dysfunctional “indoctrination centers” are guilty of child abuse…
Children who are homeschooled actually do much better in life as they are comfortable with people of all ages. True socialization takes place outside the classroom.
Not where my kids attended high school. True, it is a predominantly white (and somewhat redneck) community, but my daughter did very well on her college testing and got into a top tier college where she had a very good GPA. Yeah, there was fighting at the school, something of a social phenomena, but neither of my kids was bullied and neither were involved in fights. (Then again, both were athletes, and my son at 6’2″ and 200 lbs was not someone to be messed with.) Their education was not as good as the one I got in a northern suburban Chicago school, but at the time, my high was rated as one of the tops in the country, and may still be.
The problem with simply saying “Stop sending you kids to public schools” is that for a lot of people that’s not an option. With both parents working homeschooling often isn’t something they can even consider and many private schools have tuition fees that most families can’t afford, especially if they have more than one child.
I can’t speak for areas I have no experience with but where I live now and where my wife grew up a decent private school is on the order of $25K per student per year. That’s $325K for K-12. With two kids you’re talking $650K. That’s flat-out unaffordable for most people and therefore simply not an option.
The important thing is teachers are there, they have skin in the game. Too many times we see video of swat guys in body armor hiding behind things while a shooter is busy murdering people. A teacher in the room doesn’t have that option. Another thing that is seldom mentioned is how much it changes the dynamic when rounds are coming at the shooter. It places them in a defensive situation, they no longer have all of the power. I know that if given a choice of having an armed SRO in the building or having a handgun in my possession I will trust myself every time.
An armed teacher in the class room has fired his weapon at invaders and saved his students. But he died in the battle to protect his class. Because of his actions the students escaped the school building unharmed.
Its been reported the coach who died at the HS in Florida was an unarmed guard for the school, but he was a gun owner. He was disarmed by law.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2016/01/robert-farago/gun-hero-of-the-day-asst-chemistry-professor-syed-hamid-hussain/
See time 1.57 minutes into the you you video, an english report.
“Pakistan University Attack: Professor Fought Back Against Taliban”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-rHQ5IDu8A
Also see this 4.03 minute long video from Pakistan TV news. A translation would be better. But watching it I do understand what they are saying.
“Professor Hamid Hussain dies trying to save students -”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGODvf2EYr8
These are some sources for my college paper on teaching the Second Amendment (rights and responsibilities) in Kentucky school in grade K thru 12.
So we are going to allow the commies, SJWs and dimwits who created this problem to carry guns in their own indoctrination centers?
What could possibly go wrong!
Arming teachers conjures up images of SWAT clearing the school room by room and taking out the bad guys as they go. A more likely scenario is a lone teacher, hiding behind a desk, handgun trained on the doorway, ready to shoot down the killer if he tries to enter.
On yesterday’s news, I heard a claim that no one sheltering behind a locked door has been killed in a school shooting. I have also heard of lockdowns where the janitor has to go from classroom to classroom locking doors with his key. Deadbolts are cheap. They would be a good start even though they wouldn’t do anything for communal areas like library, gym or cafeteria.
One of the arguments against deadbolts on classroom doors is that it makes it easier for pedophile teachers to have privacy with their unwitting student victims.
Maybe just stop stopping people who want to be armed to protect kids, and are already armed other places where we don’t stop them.
“You can protect your garage, but not our kids (or your own.)” And we’re surprised so many kids think they are worthless? Worth less than a lawnmower, at least as far as we’re willing to go to protect them.
What happened? Teachers needing to be armed to protect the schools. Something’s all fucked up
“Schools that have armed staff already talk to their local law enforcement to advise them just who on campus is armed.”
This sounds plausible, in theory, but in practice I have no confidence in this being true. Look at Florida: the school and the Sheriff’s office didn’t even communicate so much as to know that the school’s video system operated on a twenty minute delay. You had officers directed to intercept the shooter in a specific location, only to discover upon arrival that he wasn’t there, anymore.
That’s extremely dangerous, working with 100% confidence in outdated information. There’s no way local departments will be able to keep up with who all is trained/authorized and who all is at school that exact day. Anything can go wrong.
For example: if you implement this, I guarantee that at some point you’ll have a school shooter incident and some unauthorized teacher will be armed that day. Officers will run in with their little list of who’s authorized and find themselves surprised by an unexpected good guy with a gun. How will they respond? Probably ok and not shoot the wrong guy, but no guarantees.
You might say there are no guarantees im anything, especially school shootings. Agreed. Except, I’m not the one printing Myth/Fact lists as though there ARE such guarantees, now am I? We need in this discourse to lighten up on the excessive, unfounded certainties and play it straight, acknowledging the risks.
Utah has had armed teachers for some 15 years with no known problems.
NOT being armed is IMMORAL! Anyone who can’t be trusted to be at all times armed in society needs to be removed from society.
There’s a reason spree-killers never attack police stations. Any questions?
The “policy” nonsense is insane…
I’m O K with a teacher who throws himself in front of a shooter to buy his kids a few more seconds having a gun. Sadly, this particular teacher we can’t let have a gun to protect his kids any more. Maybe we should have allowed that before.
I think a teacher like that – that’s most of tham – will make the right call more often than not. Maybe we should allow them more effective right calls to make, if they want.
These screeching policies are all backwards…
– A teacher died buying his kids a few seconds … but arming teachers is crazy.
– The kid who died holding a door was 15 … but raise the age before you can buy.
– The shooter had more background flags than anyone can count … so tighter restrictions on everybody else, run by the people who missed all that.
– The assigned resource officer did nothing … but only cops should have guns / having a cop there makes it all O K.
– The shooting club hid and covered their classmates … but learning about guns is bad, wrong, and makes you a crazed killer.
– The whack-job used a standard semi-auto … ban bump-fire stocks!
Sadly, the only pooitical move here is not an inch. Not a policy. Not a single consideration or comlromise – the proposals are all dishonest false-flav ops. Yes, they are coming for your guns – all of them. And for you – all of you. They’ve already started killing your kids.
Not one more authority. No, you can’t have more authoritah, Sheriff Lyin. And sadly, not an inch for the people who do this — who’s the murderer? Who doesn’t care if kids die? Who’s making political hay to disenfranchize people they don’t like? People vot killed because Giffords, the school, social services, the local cops, wouldn’t deal with her known whack-job stalker. Years of “advocacy” later a bunch of kids got killed because the same players wouldn’t deal with another known whack-job.
Sadly, we can’t play politely with these people any more. Too many kids keep dying. It’s on them. If we don’t stop them, it becomes on us.
We live in the heart of the liberal bay area in CA. My wife works at a school district.
Today teachers and staff were discussing the possibility of getting firearms for campus. In the hands of teachers and staff. They have a full time SRO on site.
Armed teachers are a good start, lock the doors no one in unless checked br armed security. Armed security at the main entrance at all times all other doors and the approaches covered by cameras and alarms.
The only thing that sucks more than teachers having guns, is teachers not having guns.
Yeah, not enamored with public schools either.
Lutheran schools in Fort Wayne run rings around the public schools.
I’m sure most of the teachers will not want to be armed (I’m sure most are anti gun liberals), however a lot will chose to be armed and hopefully well trained. Yea, I’m not much on public education either. Our daughter has been home schooled from kindergarten on and will be taking her GED a year early. She is much more mature than kids her age and gets along very well with kids of all ages. We wanted her educated, not indoctrinated and we just felt we could do a better job.
we dont need to arm teachers
we need to stop DISARMING teachers
thats how we need to frame this argument
we need to stop violating in a particularly heinous and egregious way the basic human rights of teachers
The whole “arm the teachers solution” is really indicative of one of two things:
1. The size of the cultural gulf between the “two Americas”: the America of the major urban metropolises and all the most educated and hardworking people who create all of America’s wealth, pay all of its taxes, generate all of its intellectual and artistic products, and the America of rural areas with very little productivity or culture.
2. The length that people will go to deceive themselves in order to find a solution that protects their worldview
Actually it is probably both of those things. The people who think that “arming the teachers” is a good idea are simply living on another planet from all of America’s smartest and most productive people, and also they are deceiving themselves that even they would think that its a good idea.
Like a good Soros bot you’re out of touch with reality, Tom.
See my above comment. And I live in the heart of lib land.
And that comment about productivity shows your real ignorance. How much food do those productive city dwellers produce? How much do they eat?
Thanks for playing.
Elitist AND just plain wrong? Check!
According to the National Association of Manufacturers, using the most recent data I could easily locate,
2014, The top 10 states by $s of manufacturing output are:
California
Texas
Illinois
Ohio
North Carolina
Indiana
Michigan
Pennsylvania
New York
Oregon
Given that some of these are both largely rural AND heavily ‘pro-gun’ I’d say that there is a strong argument to be made that the bulk of the country’s real ‘work’ is done in places where civil rights, such as those pertaining to arms and self defense, are respected and cherished. Further, even within these states, much of the heavy industry is outside of the major metropolitan areas. NYC, for instance, produces so little, and consumes so much that it is well understood in the truck freight industry that getting loads out of NYC is difficult to nearly impossible, and demands for large premiums to move freight into the city are common, as no loads are available coming out.
Put another way, if the top 20 largest cities in the US were walled off from the rest of the country, the occupants of those cities would perish rapidly from starvation. . . while the rest of the nation would experience a surplus of consumer goods, there being so many fewer people to purchase them while the manufacturers are largely left outside the cities and suffer relatively less in terms of shortages of labor and material. In fact, the manufacturing base of the 10 largest cities, that is, the capacity to produce manufactured goods within city limits, even allowing for unfettered supplies of raw materials, is insufficient to produce anything approaching the amounts consumed within those cities. Put another way, even allowing unlimited raw materials, the 10 largest US cities cannot produce enough goods to even trade for adequate food.
Going further, and allowing for unlimited food and raw materials, the top 10 largest cities in the US by population don’t produce enough consumer goods to supply their own needs.
Simply put, cities are not points of prosperity when real goods are considered. They are, instead, net consumers rather than producers. This is true, shockingly, even when food is taken out of the equation.
The notion that the ‘flyover country’ is somehow less valuable or, even more absurd, dependent on the large cities (for anything other than a market for the goods produced) is ridiculous.
Cities do tend to attract the bright and ambitious, because cities tend to be where the opportunities are. However, when a bright, ambitious person moves to these cities from Portsmouth, Ohio, or Livingston, Texas, or Cynthiana, Kentucky, or any of the small towns and villages in the nation, they do not necessarily adopt the social and political views of the people there. In fact, from a sociological perspective, they are unlikely to do so.
All the forgoing aside, there are already many armed teachers in American schools. No one knows how many, given that there isn’t a registry for such things, and given that some schools with armed teachers prefer not to disclose that fact.
That’s on top of the fact that given some teachers routinely carry guns outside of school, and given that some percentage of people who carry guns ignore “Gun Free Zone” signage, there must be some teachers who are carrying concealed at their schools without official permission.
Despite all of this, I was unable, in a series of Google searches, to find a single incidence of a US public school teacher murdering a student, with or without a firearm.
Going further, the concept that GFZ’s somehow make anyone safer is just absurd as well. Anyone willing to violate the social contract and the law to the degree of committing murder is extraordinarily unlikely to obey a GFZ law.
Such basic concepts seem to elude a sizable segment of the population, but fortunately they are a minority. Yes, those who oppose the basic civil rights protected in the 2nd Amendment are a minority in the nation. That’s not an opinion, it’s a demonstrable fact, backed up by numerous surveys and polls. Also, all indicators suggest that the number of Americans who own guns is not only on the rise, but skyrocketing, based on NICS checks.
On top of that, permits to carry firearms are being issued at a considerable pace, and one that is increasing over time.
The notion that allowing more teachers to exercise their natural and constitutionally protected right to bear arms while performing their jobs isn’t radical in the least. Nor is it something that will likely go away. There are now more armed teachers in schools than there were a year ago. There were more a year ago than the year before that, and no amount of pushback will prevent this pattern from continuing, thus a year from now there will be more armed teachers in schools than there are today.
Given that the arguments against allowing teachers to exercise their basic rights while on the job are based almost entirely on myths and phobias, while the arguments in support of doing so include things like “It may save YOUR childs life!” and “It’s a basic civil right.” we are highly unlikely to see any reduction in the number of armed teachers.
Further, as more parents avail themselves of arms and the right to bear them, there will be more pressure for a greater number of schools to recognize teachers basic civil rights and allow them to go armed while at school.
Further, just as the anti-civil rights, pro civilian disarmament crowd rushes to wave the bloody shirt each time an incident such as Parkland occurs, if just one ‘school shooter’ is ever stopped by an armed teacher or other school employee, the calls for allowing teacher to go armed will drown all other concerns and arguments.
The future of the US is more armed citizens in more places generally, and more armed teachers in more schools specifically. The MSM acting as an anti-civil rights propaganda machine not withstanding, this is the direction we are taking, and there appears to be nothing that can turn the tide. Truth, justice, and good ideas tend to be persistent things. Allowing teacher to exercise natural and constitutionally protected rights in the defense of themselves and their charges is just a good idea, promoting justice, and frankly, no truthful argument, founded in facts and logic, rather than emotion and phobia, can possibly change that.
I’m not easily pissed off, but this one: “Myth: We can’t train teachers to be police officers; they don’t have the right mindset.” really pisses me off, and by an unreasonable amount, when I hear it (or a variation).
Seriously, several teachers have, on purpose and knowingly, literally placed their bodies in between the children and shooters for the express purpose of slowing the shooter down in hopes that that little extra time will be what makes a difference and saves kid(s) lives. Anyone who thinks that those people would not have at least attempted to shoot back had they had the option is a foolish asshole.
To me the ideal situation would be one where every teacher had the same option to carry concealed as they do in the street wherever they live; if they want to jump through the State’s hoops to carry concealed, let them do so int he classroom. The only additional training they need is to tell all the teachers (whether they carry or not) to follow the same procedure of sheltering in place with their students. If a shooter tries to go into a classroom, they will do what comes naturally; if they have a gun they will try to stop the threat. They don’t need extra training to do that (though any training they can get is great, but I don’t think expense should be an excuse for why not to allow teachers to carry).
Human nature dictates that the person with all of the bragging about what they would do in a school shooting (this (especially) includes “law enforcement”) actually would cower in fear, while the 90 lb. armed teacher would reluctantly, but successfully “take out” the shooter. Being “forced” into a situation also forces one to act. There are many examples of persons, who one would normally think, would not be capable of acting in an extremely high-stress situation, but DO come out on top–stopping the threat, and saving lives.
All one has to do is look at the Medal of Honor recipients, who are almost always mild-mannered, initially reluctant to act, but DO act, and perform feats who most would think are normally beyond their capacity and capabilities–TRUE bravery in the heat of battle. The same applies to those civilians who act during school shootings.
Human nature has a habit of propelling (actually forcing) the normal, average person into a true “hero” and life saver, while showing the true nature of those we assign to protect us. A good example of our “protectors” cowering in fear is the deputies who FAILED TO ACT despite having all of the equipment necessary and the preferential laws on their side (that protect them from lawsuits and liability).
TRUE heroes ACT, while our “protectors” (failed to) REACT.
Arming teachers is not the answer.
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