It’s everywhere. Just because it’s frowned upon in major media and certain circles doesn’t make it illegal. There have been several posts outlining the ability for teachers to legally carry and most of those states don’t specify that it must be concealed. Some school districts are more strict than state law but a school right next to those schools in that same district is not beholden to that school district’s rules. That’s only for public schools. It’s certainly less rare then indicated by major medias and by this thread. None the less, it remains an absolute fact that Zero incidents have occurred at schools that allow their teachers to carry. Open or concealed. Mass, single, accidental, teacher getting their firearm stolen. None of that has ever happened and there’s been ample opportunity for it to have happened. It’s a poor unbacked argument to claim that any of that might happen as it’s literally never happened. There’s really no valid argument against any kind of carry at schools because the many many schools that allow it have never even suffered a gun related injury. All facts, no fauci!
I want to agree, but let’s not say “it’s everywhere,” because it obviously isn’t. I don’t have stats on percentages, but I can see that a lot of states and school districts still freak out at the idea of arming teachers.
Also, let’s not say it can never happen. School shootings are still very rare (too common, but still rare). They get a lot of attention because they represent our worst nightmares. But just from a numbers perspective, the fact that something has never happened cannot prove that something will never happen.
Those appear to be either law enforcement officers, or not in a classroom. Some appear to be rifles being open carried on a sidewalk.
In that cartoon murder had happened in 1957. In armed schools, murder has NEVER happened! School districts are corrupt! Operate outside of them. Very little progress can be achieved within them. They focus on teaching kids to comply and now even to comply without question. I will repeat, there has NEVER been any kind of gun related injury in ANY school that allows teachers to be armed. Those are facts, not fauci!!!
There’s a couple cops mixed into those screenshot’s but clearly there are teachers in classrooms practicing open carry and it’s not a big deal. It’s everyday. That’s after one search. Took all of five minutes. Again, it doesn’t matter if you agree or refuse to believe. It occurs every day all over the country outside of school districts and even within some school districts. No matter what you want to believe or refuse to believe it is a fact that NEVER has there ever been any kind of gun related injury in schools that allow their teachers to arm themselves. We have been watching and recording this stuff for some time now and there has been ZERO incidents and lots of opportunities. The evidence is clear that the more present guns are in the hands of good people, the safer everyone is.
What I see is the kind of stock photos that newspaper articles throw in that usually aren’t in any way related to the story they are published with. A couple of them look like they might be in a classroom but there is no way of knowing if these are photos of teachers or security personnel or non uniformed LEOs. Or if the couple of potential classroom photos are just hunter safety classes, CCW classes taking place in a school setting or at a LEO academy. I still can’t find a single reliable story that clearly states that teachers or non security staff are open carrying on school grounds during regular, non firearm related, classes.
Even if there were a few hundred schools that allowed this the sample size is way too small to determine how safe and effective it is. I would also bet that if it actually does happen it is in rural areas where crime and violence are almost none existent to begin with and not at all a good indicator of what would happen in a more violent urban area.
It is obvious that the percentage of schools that allow armed staff is incredibly small compared to the hundreds of thousands of schools in this country. If untrained teachers suddenly started carrying in every school in the country there will eventually be some accidents. Humans aren’t perfect and poorly trained humans are far less than perfect. There have already been some close call examples posted on this site and elsewhere. And the higher percentage of schools that allow this the higher the chance of a negative incident happening. It would only take a couple of incidents for even more politicians to jump on the no armed staff anywhere bandwagon.
I firmly believe that well trained armed staff can make students safer. In these once in a blue moon events having armed staff on hand can save lives. But these school shooting incidents are so incredibly rare that we have to make sure that the risk of one mistake by any of the hundreds of thousands of armed staff members needed to prevent them does not outweigh the reward.
You see what you want I guess. Believe what you want I guess. I think we’ve been keeping track of incidents like these for a long time. Decades at least. NOT ONE INCIDENT AT SCHOOLS THAT ALLOW THEIR EMPLOYEES TO ARM THEMSELVES! That counts for an awful lot in my book on how to address the issue moving forward. Let them arm themselves if they want. Some will choose not to. Some will put one on their hip. Others will conceal for some reason. Some will quit and start their own schools that won’t allow firearms. Just like the ones who wanted to carry did when they weren’t allowed to at a public school they worked at. That’s the beauty of this country. You can make your own if you don’t like something. I think I’ve proven that there are plenty of schools all across the country that allow their teachers to carry a firearm on their hip, in their pants, or any way they would otherwise. I’ve shown that state law mostly doesn’t dictate how a teacher can carry if they’re allowed to carry. It’s left up to the individual schools to decide, as it should be. Boiled down, the more present and visible the firearms are, in the hands of well intentioned people, the safer that area becomes. I think that can be proven
I don’t think anyone here disputes that claim. (EDIT: wasn’t there a recent story about a student getting control over a careless teacher’s firearm?) Reviewing the discussion, the only counterpoint was to the claim that schools with teachers who open carry have had no incidents, to which multiple people responded that the number of teachers who open carry is so small that it’s statistically insignificant. You don’t have to agree, but there are nearly 100k public schools in the United States, and an additional 30k public schools. There may be a few examples of those schools that allow teachers to open carry, but it’s so small as a percentage of the whole that we shouldn’t use them to make sweeping statements about the whole.
One other potential counter point I would bring up is the claim that concealed carry offers no tactical advantage over open carry.
I have no law enforcement or military experience but everything on strategy and tactics that I have ever read talks about the importance of keeping your enemy from knowing your full capabilities and the location of your defenses. If a wanna be active school shooter knows there are armed staff present but doesn’t know who or where they are that is likely to give them some serious second thoughts. If they know which staff are carrying then they could easily avoid them or take those people out first when the opportunity arises.
That might explain why the only successful school shootings I know of where armed protection was on site took place at schools with open carrying law enforcement officers or campus police. But again the sample size is so small that the limited number of events can’t prove anything one way or the other.
I have some experience (I won’t claim to be an expert) and I support this line of thinking. Especially concerning schools. If a potential shooter enters an occupied school, I don’t want him to know where the defenses are, or where the return fire will come from. I just want them to know that they will receive defensive fire. These guys are nuts, but they’re competent enough to pick soft targets. Our schools should be our hardest targets.
If the defenses are everywhere and the return fire could come from any direction, the shooter will never enter the property. That’s why in schools that allow their employees to be Americans and afford them the ability to protect themselves, there has been zero gun related injuries of any kind. A tactical advantage would depend on the intentions. If your intent is to be able to defend yourself and the people around you, you would use different tactics then if your intent was to go unnoticed. This is why cops and military let it hang out for everybody to admire and also why a detective or special force operator would tuck it in. Both are just trying to get their jobs done in the most efficient manner. The fact that in the entire history of teachers carrying everyday at their schools, concealed or on the hip, not once has anyone ever tried to take a teachers gun or shoot another person at all. Regardless of the level of training. That not once has anyone ever been harmed by a gun in a school that allows their teachers their God given right to be able to defend themselves and not be forced to rely on anyone else should tell any reasonable person that it’s probably a good idea that teachers be allowed to carry a firearm if they choose to. It really feels like we all agree but are hung up on open carry versus concealed or a requirement for training. I think that should all be left up to the individual schools. Again, in schools that allow teachers to carry, open or otherwise, there have been ZERO gun injuries.
FWIW, there are these
I don’t believe there are enough teachers carrying concealed (and none openly) to be statistically significant at this point (unfortunately).
We have had a fair number of LEO’s armed in schools, from which there are a plethora of incidents, including attempted gun grabs from cops
That’s what happens when you consolidate power. You’re giving a perp one target. That target gets defeated, or runs away, then it’s easy pickings. Seems like you were unable to find a story about a teacher getting their gun snatched. Fact of the matter is that of the thousands and thousands of teachers that have carried a gun to school in the history of schools, not one gun has ever been taken in recorded history. Not one student or fellow teacher has been shot as a result of an armed teacher in the history of teachers being armed in schools. Not one! No requirement for training is needed, we can seek out training ourselves like big boys and girls. Plenty of Training classes are available and some are offered free for teachers. As they should be. No restrictions for how a person should carry is necessary, being concealed is no advantage in that scenario. I would want to make a statement just as a “resource officer” would or LE would and that statement would be Don’t even try it! Why, because it just works better that way.
I am not sure thousands upon thousands of teachers have carried in the classroom. If they have, it seems to have been (very well) concealed (which IMO is the way it should be for teachers in the classroom, not openly)
You are correct, not one teacher in modern USA has carried a gun in the classroom and resulted in a student being shot.
IMO, concealed has many advantages, which is why I carry concealed. I believe a teacher would have all of those same advantages and more. So far, it seems what few teachers have carried, have done so concealed.
While we are at it, let’s throw this reality in the mix. There has been at least one school shooting where the responder hit an innocent. The Colorado STEM school shooting in Highland Ranch had an armed guard. He was former military. He shot, missed the bad guy, the bullet went through a wall and hit an innocent student.
This is a complicated topic. I agree with @Shamrock regarding the small sample size of all of this.
Good discussion point. How do we mitigate risk of accidents from “friendly fire”?
One other aspect I thought interesting was that where teachers are allowed to conceal carry, if they have a special locker available in the school, for any moment they need to, might that idea spread – whereby other employers (non schools) can learn to do the same. IDK.
That has never happened because cowards wouldn’t even try it. You guys are accusing people of doing things that have never been done. You’re like, well I’m afraid of this or what if that when it has literally never happened. One of the greatest advantages of allowing teachers to defend themselves is the idea that potential loser coward psychopaths would never even try these schools. Especially if they grew up in that kind of system. I think you all are underestimating the amount of teachers that carry everyday in schools. That number increased exponentially after columbine and is rising everyday in this new climate of seclusion and social media. I also think you all are underestimating the effect of knowing teachers can arm themselves has on a potential assailant. It’s profound. This is why there has been ZERO INCIDENTS of gun related injury at schools that allow their teachers the constitutional right to not have to rely on another person for their own protection. Remember, the road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of truth. Those words are directly from the mouth of a tyrant. It’s not true that any teacher has ever been disarmed by an assailant. It’s not true that any teacher has ever shot an innocent. In fact, the truth is that of ALL the many schools that allow their teachers to arm themselves, none of them, ZERO, have suffered any kind of gun related injury. Another truth is that concealment of a firearm affords a person a lower profile at the cost of a more difficult draw. That’s no fauci!
Do you have any numbers for how many teachers carry at work/in the classroom?
How many gun related injuries have there been at any schools? I’m not talking about the gang related violence that happens right outside or somewhat near schools that the media lumps into “school gun violence” to scare everyone. I suspect gun related injuries in schools are incredibly rare. Thus gun related incidents at the small percentage of schools where teachers are allowed to carry would be unicorn events.
I think you are not only vastly overestimating the number of teachers who carry at schools but you might also be vastly overestimating the number of school gun injury incidents that one would expect to happen at schools. I also bet it is likely that a significant number of the school districts that might allow staff to carry are going to be in low crime gun friendly areas where violent gun injury incidents are even less likely to happen. Most urban and suburban places where these incredibly rare events are a little more likely to occur are far more likely to be in areas ruled by anti gun officials where the school districts are unlikely to allow staff to carry. Instead they get no protection or have to settle for an armed LEO or security guard or two. There have been mishaps and shootings at those schools despite the presence of a trained and armed open carrier. Though again all these incidents are incredibly rare and statistically useless.
Significantly increasing armed staff in schools might make these incredibly rare events a little rarer. It would likely increase the odds that any event that does occur is stopped as quickly as possible. But it will also definitely increase the odds of accidents or unintended consequences. Which is why I believe that proper training is so vital to making more armed staff in more schools a sustainable and safe reality.
Well, maybe start with some of the links in this thread
Should Teachers be Armed? - Legal & Second Amendment - USCCA Community (usconcealedcarry.com)
Here’s a recent story about a 3rd grader who got a school superintendent’s firearm.
A Superintendent Left His Gun in a School Restroom. A Student Found It (edweek.org)
I could swear we recently had a story on this forum about a teacher who left her firearm in her desk and a student found it. I can’t find it tonight, but I remember discussing the need to keep your firearm on your person, not in an unsecure desk.
Anyway, I don’t think any of us are here arguing that teachers should not be armed. Myself, at least, I’m not arguing with you. But you keep talking about this magic number zero, and zero is a pretty absolute number.