Armed teachers, your thoughts?

[Alan Block]

Picking out a bad guy from a crowd and quickly killing him without colateral damage requires more training than a CCW requires. SWAT, air marshals, Israeli commandos... they have that training.

[5hundo]

I had some weird teachers growing up. I'm not sure I'd want them packin' heat...

[8-Ball]

Reality is not fantasy... by the time LEO arrives, the killing is mostly done.

Having armed teachers could save lives... but I fantasize...

I'm sorry but reality is not fantasy. You cannot identify who the shooter is and who the good guy is when they are both wearing plain clothes. There might be other things that might give a clue, but one of the things that happen is that first responders may get incorrect info. Someone else who is calling in could think that the teacher is the shooter. Friendly Fire is an issue.


Again, reality is not fantasy. It will give some people boners thinking about armed citizens taking down bad guys, but reality is different. If Mr. Smith heads to the threat, and kids move to another classroom, is there a gurantee that the active shooter is alone? could it be that there are more than one? How long would it take to move one classroom of people(let's say 20) to another location? Can it be that while Mr. Smith is watching down the hallway, the active shooter will appear from the other end and shoot at Mr. Smith?


The better alternative is to make sure there can be faster reponse without risk of FF and confusion. The general idea is that if the teachers are definitely aware that gun sounds are coming from other side of school, they may move out of campus. If they are not able to, then it's better to bunker in. Active shooters tend to bypass doors that seem to be fortified/not opening. Interestingly, the professor who was killed while he tried to lock the door managed to save other's lives because his body was blocking the door way.

[GoodEyeSniper]

I don't know if you are unawre of pradigm shift in active shooter response, but thesedays, the first thing that most LEOs do when it is an active shooter situation, is to get at least 1 more and go in ASAP.

BULLCRAP. Go look at the VT shootings and see what the hell they did. There have been a few instances where the brave officers were able to go in right away. There have been more where they "set up a perimeter and wait it out" usually the murderer ends his own life before the cops can do a thing.

[HCz]

Training would be mandatory for school officials who carry concealed as there is a lot of different aspects within a school. Much like an air marshal situation. I think that's the right way to go instead of waiting for the cops to get their acts together with school shootings.

Question is what will be the training standards? I mentioned POST 1 level since that is the minimum to be a police officer, IIRC. On top of that there should be an active shooter training, which requires more time and resources.

Another aspect that many tend to forget is the problem with lawsuits. CCW laws do not indicate whether the permit holder has right to defend oneself by pursuing the attacker. There is a chance of argument by claiming third party defense, but that's not a guaranteed legal support. Districts would prefer to avoid liabilities and instead have school safety officer than a trained teacher.

Also, as I said earlier, a teacher's first responsibility is to his/her students. The only chance a CCW would be helpful is if the active shooter came in to the class after shooting up another class. The first to be targetted will be a teacher since he is the most visible one in the class. If the teacher had CCW, he'd have to draw the gun from concealment, aim, pull the trigger. Considering that active shooter already has a gun in his hand, this means it's a serious catching up for the teacher. Depending on the active shooter's skill this may not even happen, as teacher might not see it coming.

Let's assume that the shooting started in the other part of building. Then other teachers can take some action, and going after the active shooter poses a lot more risk overall than making it difficult for the active shooter to find his next target. By blocking the doorway and windows, active shooter would have to move to the next target, and it's a bit easier for first responders to engage active shooter if he is the only one with gun moving around.

The one thing I find interesting in this thread is the idea that the risk of a teacher getting shot in a friendly fire incident is the reason teachers shouldn't carry. I guess a couple 30 student classrooms seriously wounded and dead is a better trade off than a mistakenly shot teacher? What kind of logic is that?

Are you taking a pot shot at me? (pun intended.)
FF is one of many things that could go wrong. There is no guarantee that the teacher can stop the threat, and quite honestly FF inicident could turn the table in active shooter's favor.

Let's say there is one active shooter. A teacher somehow manages to secure his/her students and goes after the shooter. He finds the active shooter, and as he was about to take him down, responding officers see him and shoot him. Now the active shooter has one less opponent to deal with, and knows that the police are coming soon, enabling him to set up a hasty ambush. Granted most active shooters are wusses who would stop at the very first encounter with equal or superior force, but you never know.

The idea is to minimize confusion and risk in order to get the job done. There is no need to create more confusion than what is already happening. By introducing the third element(armed non-uniformed teacher) confusion is now increased in the equation.

In the unlikely event I am on a campus and armed during a school shooting, I will be on my phone to the local authorities informing them I am on campus, armed, and actively seeking the shooter and here is my person description. Tell the responding units to give me about two seconds to drop my weapon before they light me up. Or maybe I will just hole up in a classroom and watch out the window. If a target should appear, I will shoot from cover through the window.

You do know that there will be a lot of confusion, even among dispatchers when things get started. The responders don't get the best of updated info, and that means there will be confusion. Police doesn't have to give verbal orders in this case as things are already unfolding.

As others have stated before, in Israel, they have teachers that are armed. School shootings have dropped to essentially zero. Same with shootings in large crowds. Too many people are armed and will take action against the shooter... They used to hope for probably 30+ dead and injured, and they were getting very few "numbers" out of it... so they switched to bombs...

But the two incidents that happened 34 years apart, none of them was stopped by armed teachers. Having an armed teacher didn't stop the attacker in March 2008.
In Mercaz Harav seminary shooting(March 2008) the first person to engage the active shooter was an off duty army officer, not an armed teacher. As we already know teachers in Israel maybe armed, but it certainly did not prevent the shooting.

BULLCRAP. Go look at the VT shootings and see what the hell they did. There have been a few instances where the brave officers were able to go in right away. There have been more where they "set up a perimeter and wait it out" usually the murderer ends his own life before the cops can do a thing.

Interestingly, VT shooter Cho did not stop shooting until he realized police was definitely coming. So police who responded on that day actually went in as soon as they were able to assemble a team. they did not wait it out like columbine, but they got what is considered a minimum resources. I don't know what your background is, but running in to gun battle by yourself is not the smartest thing to do. There was one incident in elderly housing in Ohio(?) where the officer went in by himself, but that's the only case I can think of that did not require a team.

[erblo]

BULLCRAP. Go look at the VT shootings and see what the hell they did. There have been a few instances where the brave officers were able to go in right away. There have been more where they "set up a perimeter and wait it out" usually the murderer ends his own life before the cops can do a thing.

I was thinking the same thing. Not only does it take forever for the cops to get there, but then it's a matter if they go in or wait around outside.

[Super Spy]

I think the whole country should be "shall issue" Yup schools included.

Yes an armed teacher may get taken out by friendly fire, or an armed teacher may take out the hostile before they take out 10 more innocents.

[SDgunner]

if teachers were allowed to pack I would want to too

[JDoe]

Picking out a bad guy from a crowd and quickly killing him without colateral damage requires more training than a CCW requires.

A CCW is just a permit to carry a concealed weapon not necessarily a measure of training.

But why would a teacher even have a problem picking out a bad guy from a crowd quickly? He's the guy with the gun shooting children. What more do you need to know?

With regular basic training I believe anyone with decent marksmanship could acquire and retain the skills necessary to quickly end an active shooter situation. We aren't talking about a huge range of diverse skills here just a few of the basics mastered.

The most important thing to teach to teachers choosing to carry, IMO, is when not to take the shot. If we only taught armed teachers when not to take a shot that would solve all the collateral damage problems, provide a deterrent effect and reduce casualties in these types of shootings.

[yellowfin]

Picking out a bad guy from a crowd and quickly killing him without colateral damage requires more training than a CCW requires. SWAT, air marshals, Israeli commandos... they have that training.

Exactly how much doubt is there when it's one guy shooting at everyone else?!??!

Good grief, the what if's and technicalities from some people here is just astounding. Do you waffle and overanalyze that much when you drive? We're talking about going from having a ZERO chance of surviving to ANY improvement over that. None of the what if's is worth forfeiting that. The technicalities are something like one in a hundred or one in a thousand where someone having a gun when you have no effective armament of your own for successful defense and counterattack has a pretty near 100% advantage on you. Where are all the hypotheticals about friendly fire in the hundreds of thousands of cases of successful armed defense in this country every year?

Response? Didn't think so.

In any case, the vastly more likely case and one that does happen all the time is common crime against teachers, students, and staff who are disarmed and thus exposed to crime on campuses and immediately thereafter. Who needs Columbine when the gas station down the road can be just as deadly on the way home? Disarming people during work has just as bad or worse reprecussions before and after. That's one BIG reason why CCW's are in the single percentage in shall issue states, because if you can't be armed while at work then your day is essentially chalked up as a loss right off the bat.

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

I'm a retired cop teaching in a pretty liberal community. I'd love to be able to carry on campus. Most of my colleagues aren't folks I'd want to see attempting to hunt an active shooter - and most, being rabidly anti-gun, wouldn't do it anyway. While not all of CA is utterly leftist, the educational system is dominated by leftist politics. I can't see this as a viable proposal given that political climate. Even if it were, there are some serious issues that arise:

A teacher, IMHO, should not be abandoning their students to search for/neutralize a shooter. Their primary responsibility is the students placed in their immediate care. In my school's Emergency Response Plan, abandoning your class is strictly prohibited. On the other hand, an armed teacher would be able to neutralize a shooter attempting to enter their classroom (Edit - or if it started in their classroom). You're not going to have mobs of armed teachers swarming around a school looking for the shooter. Almost all will be secured in their classrooms with their students.

The few teachers/staff who were free to search for/neutralize a shooter would have to have a way of being readily recognized by LE. I've been nearly shot by my own team when working plainclothes - and it happens far too frequently. That means identifying garb or equipment as well as training with local LE for face recognition. Who's paying for that?

Teachers would not only have to be willing to be armed, but willing to take time to periodically train. I would, but I'm semi-retired and only teach one period a day. How many full-time teachers would be willing to do this? It's all well and good to talk about mastering "a few basic skills", but LE agencies spend a fair amount of training time refreshing those skills. Who's going to do that for armed teachers? Speaking as a former LE firearms trainer, one cannot teach only when not to make a shot. You must teach when the use of deadly force is permissible under law and policy, as well as when it is not. That training must be refreshed periodically as it is a perishable skill.

Better to allow teachers willing to train/demonstrate appropriate skills to be armed on campus - but not require them to abandon their students to hunt for a shooter. If (and this is pretty unlikely) every teacher were armed, a shooter would have much fewer areas of opportunity to find victims. Armed staff without a class to protect might be able to respond with the appropriate training and equipment. Otherwise, they're a liability, not an asset.

[ldivinag]

after the VT incident, front sight sent out a memo t everyone saying they would give free training to any school admin/teacher/staff that would be allowed to.

i'm a staff member at a pubic university and i asked the dean of the school i worked for, but never heard anything back...

[DPC]

Last thing I would want is some armed liberal teacher taking pot shots at anything that moves!!! As demopnstrated during my security traing videos the lady shot at least two children during an leo supervised training session.

[HowardW56]

Last thing I would want is some armed liberal teacher taking pot shots at anything that moves!!! As demopnstrated during my security traing videos the lady shot at least two children during an leo supervised training session.

1.) How many bad guys were hit?

2.) And therotically saved how many?

3.) Was it her first go at training?

[locosway]

HCz, Why would you want a teacher to have POST training? Are they going to be arresting people?

I'd rather them do some IDPA training which is much more realistic and far cheaper. Any tactical training is usually better than standing at a line and shooting a stationary target that doesn't resemble a human.