Should Teachers be Armed?

Not being combative here, but, it’s exponentially more likely a child will die in the car ride to school, or anywhere else for that matter, than be shot. I believe even after Columbine, it was a 1 in 614,000,000 chance of being shot by an active shooter, in a school. And that likelihood has decreased ever since, with better tracking of mentally deranged people, and better response times of officers, and, more people carrying defensive handguns.

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In 2017, 12,000 people were injured in school bus accidents, 95 people died as a result of a school bus accident. That’s actually down from 2016, which saw 16,000 injuries and 125 deaths.
School Bus Crashes - Injury Facts

Meanwhile in 2017, 25 people were injured in school shootings, 13 people died.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27209/how-many-children-died-school-shootings-2016-2017-daily-wire

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I disagree. Teachers should have the option to carry if they can pass the background check and are willing to take active shooter training.

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See, this is the thing about how humans perceive risk. Situations we are familiar with seem inherently less risky, even when that’s not the case at all.

“I was in a car multiple times every day for the last year and nothing bad happened” is a powerful influence on how risky we perceive being in a car to be. “I was in a place while a mass shooting was happening” has never happened to most of us, so the percieved risk is muck higher.

Either can kill you, but we have less personal experience with surviving a mass shooting, and it’s aparent risk is amplified by it being a socially aberrant behavior, so we see it as a more significant threat, and therefore overestimate the actual risk.

Risk management, and the assessment of risk in medical devices, is a big part of what I do every week, and this natural human distortion of risk is a challenge Every.Single.Time. Even with people who do this work every day.

It’s no wonder most people get this wrong, even in light of the facts. It’s just hard to get our brains to do this right.

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Greg almost all schools provide active shooter training designed around a Lock out, Get out, Take out plan. Armed school staff require much more training just to meet the insurance requirements.

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@Michael7 “Almost All” is a big target… where I live, a school may be a church-based school with under a dozen students. My great granddaughter just started in a school where the whole student body counts under 60… her previous school was 11 students. I don’t know the new school’s training and planning regime, guess I’ll be calling about that on Monday. :thinking:

That said, I don’t think you can count on all schools having the same minimum standard of preparation.

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Good point Zee. Yes, absolutely ask about their active shooter response plan. It should be a detailed plan that includes exterior security as well as interior security. I would also check with local law enforcement to see if they train with the school staff. Some plans are just on paper stored in the superintendent’s office. To be a good plan it must include frequent training with staff and responding law enforcement.

We only live about 50 miles apart. Hope to meet you guys someday.

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:smiley: totally in for that :smiley:

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Michael, yes the schools do provide training. My son’s school had the drills last week for Fire, Tornado, and Active shooter. I discussed with him what they covered, some teachers just go through the motions others have enhanced the plan… like everything else in school it is the teachers who make the difference. As far as the insurance goes I think it could be done if the schools were determined to provide protection. Tell an insurance company that they would provide the armed security policy or loose all the biz and they would do it.

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Yup. I’m sure schools already pay a ton in liability insurance for the kids.

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The major school insurers do provide liability insurance for armed staff but it comes at a price and with some strict training requirements. The main question is, will local taxpayers vote for a rate hike to cover the significant cost. Mine did, the neighboring districts didn’t.

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Come to the Expo next March and meet @Zee, @DBrogue, @KevinM, and many more! We’d love to meet you @Michael7!

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I think we should make sure the teachers have what they need to be successful first. By that I mean classroom supplies. We ask local teachers to tell the church what they need so that we can meet those needs. I mean they are rationed supplies here while state politicians vote (when possible) to raise their own salaries. Then, once the basics are covered… Arm who is willing to carry that burden.

All true but it is inevitable that we will have more school shootings in the future.

It is also completely factual that the bet way to keep casualties to a minimum in any active shooter event is to rapidly engage them with return fire.

The only affordable and reasonable way to accomplish that is with armed faculty and staff.

The only other affordable alternative is to turn our schools into something that more resembles prisons or an airport security zone than what we envision as schools with fences, walls, barriers, and highly controlled access and egress through security check points and metal detectors.

Even with the latter you’d still need an immediate armed response should a shooting occur.

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They have the right to bear arms. States enforce or don’t enforce Gun Free Zones. I would not prevent anyone from armed. I would consider teachers to be conceal carry only. That would, in most cases require training to have a permit or license to do so.

Should ALL the teachers be armed? No. That’s like asking for trouble. Select school staff. Principal, Vice-Principal, 1 Administrative (Secretary?), the athletic instructor (since many times sports are played outside). I would also suggest the Custodian/Janitor since he/she could be anywhere on the grounds.

The schools should hire security, not rely on school staff. How many are needed would depend on size of the building and it’s layout. The team would need to have communication with each other. In addition, when there are school concerts, sporting events (usually at night, after school hours), there needs to be security for those times as well. Somehow a balance needs to be struck between keeping the children and staff safe, yet making them feel comfortable and not like they are in a prison. Low profile visibility to the kids, but higher visibility to the evil people choosing vulnerable targets. Signs would be good. Media coverage of the positive type (i.e. meet the protectors). Concealed carry and protective gear. They don’t need to be carrying semi-auto rifles out in the open. However, get the news out that the school is protected. No fat asses! You need to be able to move quickly, not be a risk for a heart attack. You don’t have to be an Olympian, but if you can’t sprint and get to where the trouble is, you shouldn’t be volunteering to do this.

I didn’t mean to insult anyone about the “fat asses” part. However, we have all seen the overweight cops and security personnel. No, you can’t say that it’s the body armor making some of these people look fat.

Now, you know the democrat/liberals/communists are going to be in an uproar about the very idea. They need training (I agree), they need a psyche test (not necessarily). Obviously, a background check, and a skills test. 1st aid training done regularly. I think that the certification by local Police should appease the ones that would fight against this sort of thing.

Create a simple plan… I don’t know if that’s possible. General guidelines. However, each school is different, their layout, total population, location. You can create a basic SOP, Concept Of Operations, but then each plan would have to be customized to fit the schools make up.

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The cost of hiring full time armed security can easily range from 80-100k per guard, even more in some states and that’s a cost many schools simply cannot afford.

The much more practical and affordable option is as you say, selected and trained faculty/staff.

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Something to consider from a cost/benefit perspective.

We have around 140-150,000 public and private k-12 schools plus about 4,000 4 year colleges and several thousand 2 year community colleges and vo tech training centers.

let’s just round that to say 160,000 “schools” in need of some level of protection.

There will be less than a dozen mass shootings annually for all of those institutions plus a few much more minor gun involved incidents involving students/staff on campus.

So let’s be generous and say 2 dozen such incidents that have the potential at least to become mass shootings.

when you divide 160,000 potential targets by 24 we get a one in 6,660 chance of a school shooting.

Most communities simply cannot justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on school security/police with such a small chance of a mass shooting breaking out on campus.

It costs less than 1/10th as much to train and equip selected volunteers and to keep them current in training.

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Yes, there is a financial cost to providing armed security. However, what if no teachers or staff want to step up and volunteer? What then? You are asking a lot from them. They will need training. That will cost. You can’t just give them weapons. The cost of weapons and bullets is there. You going to ask them to give up personal time for training? They are going to have to bring their own weapons/ammo? Holsters, inside or outside the waistband? Who makes these decisions? Who pays? Finally, if those teachers volunteer for this duty, you can bet they’ll ask for more pay. Who pays for their training? There’s costs to everything.

The other issue will be the legal one. What if a teacher’s action or inaction causes the death of one or more students? Will the school be sued, as well as the teacher?

To train them, teach them how, when, and where to shoot is important and not something that can be done in a hurried fashion. After the do learn, they need to maintain weapons proficiency. It’s not just a one time, ok, you know how to shoot now, you’re done with training.

It’s a mess, with so many unresolved issues when using volunteers. All this is taken out of the schools hands when you hire a security team. Are you paying them, yes, of course. To me, it seems easier. It’s a job creator too.

The way I see it, you have three options: 1. Volunteers (and having to negotiate all the money issues). 2. Security Team/Company (professionals, no negotiations). 3. Do nothing (which is a terrible option).

If there are no qualified volunteers then you have a whole new problem.

In the schools that have enacted these programs it hasn’t been a problem. Even one armed person who is competent presents both a deterrent and a resource available to stop these shooters within seconds rather than the long minutes it takes for police to respond.

The cost for these programs is minimal compared to hiring armed security, less than 1/10 the cost annually.

The faculty and staff are not only considering the potential loss’/injury to students but to themselves as well.

I have yet to hear of a district that initiated one of these programs that could not get qualified volunteers to step up.

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Where I live, there is a ccw instructor that does half price for any teacher in the district for training. When he first started that, he had a waiting list of teachers.

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