For those not sure about teachers with CHL

[TX_Kevin]

There are a lot of good points here. Sounds like a think tank. Todd's making some good points too. The CHL does teach you to get the heck out, not charge into a fight. If teachers are to carry at schools, whether male or female, and I do think many of both are qualified, I'd like to see them get some tactical training. That could go a long way toward saving their lives, and saving the lives of others.

But with training, I'd like to see them carry if they are able. It's not a perfect world we live in, and it's getting worse each day.

[WCB]

For, with proper training. The CHL class is a joke compared to a good combat handgun course like what I took Saturday. And yearly refreshers and a qual required every year.
I honestly believe that if Administrators and teachers, along with not being a "Gun Free Zone", there would be a lot less school shootings. Pass it and only time will tell...

[iamntxhunter]

A few considerations:

1) Aside from first responders, teachers have one of the most high stress jobs there is. Teachers are only human. Most strive to be the best they can be, but we still hear about teachers having sex with students. Nobody is infallible. We think that perhaps all teachers get into teaching strictly to help kids learn, but I have met some very poor examples of this is teachers. High stress means that perhaps teachers aren't the best suited for carrying guns.

How stressed do you think they would be if they heard gun shots and knew there was absolutely no way for them to neutralize that threat since they are not armed.

2) In a situation such as a public school I would think that there are going to be parents who are lawsuit happy. "My child is scared her teacher has a gun!" "I want 5 million dollars for her therapy." It's a sad but true reality.

What about all parents suing since the school is aware of a trend as of lately and the school failed to take appropriate steps to take reasonable precaustions to prevent this kind of tragedy.

3) I have no statistics on this but I would say in my experience that aside from PE and coaches, probably there are 95% female teachers to 5% male. What percentage of CHL holders are female? I'm willing to bet it is scewed heavily to the male side. Many women don't want to carry. Unless they are forced to, many would simply refuse. So, a shooter would have a high likelihood of hitting a room with no protection from CHL.

There is a thread about how women shouldn't be allowed to serve in combat and there are a few who say that they are more than capable to handle it. Just throwing that out there.

4) Many, though not all females hate to carry anything on their hip. My wife refuses to even have a cell phone on her hip. It goes in a purse. I would NOT feel good about a gun in a purse hanging from a chair where it could be taken when her back is turned. A safe in the corner might be an option, but there are issues with this as well.

I think that over time you would put some emphasis on hiring a certain percentage of those that are capable and willing. We as a society do it all the time for other issues. You need to start somewhere to get it implemented.

5) Okay, lets say only 1 in 10 teachers has a gun. Suddenly they hear gunfire from down the hall. Do they leave their kids unprotected to try and protect the other teacher's kids? Or, do they stay with their kids? If the latter, then even something like Sandy Hook could happen again.

You go towards the threat and overwhelm the shooter and kill him. If there were no armed teachers they would be a sitting duck so it would be a moot point to ask do they leave their students, it wouldn't really matter.

6) Would just anyone with a CHL be allowed to carry? I would think more intensive training would be necessary given that most CHL classes offer NOTHING on true self defense situations.

Absolutely there would/should be more training. This is not about self defense this is about defense of others other than just yourself.

I would think an armed guard or two would be better given that they can be free of the burden of having their own class to protect. They could be better trained and better equipped.

Why couldn't this be done in conjunction with armed teachers? Depends on the size of the school, The number of entry points, the number of students and the level of physical preparedness of the security. If you are older and retired then there would need to be many more guards say 8 to 10 versus 4 or 5 that are much younger and in better shape as to be able to run and cover more ground. Again numbers vary according to the size of school.


Count me as against teachers carrying.

I am in the camp of doing something rather than talk it to death and to begin being proactive in protecting our children rather than waiting for it to happen again somewhere else. There are no easy absolute answers but we as a responsble society must start and as we move along we can refine and fine tune the personal and strategies that prove to work out over time.


Todd

This is just my opinion and observation.

[4wheels]

Thanks Todd for bringing some good points to the discussion!

I have to agree that training and practice would be needed and I would prefer police officers rather than just a chl. chl is a start but not the end solution. Currently it is against the law to bring a gun on campus. Consequently trained volunteers could not show up to protect there kids if they wanted to. As more women serve in combat - more are going to be very competent with a gun. And more won't need one to put an end to a bad situation.

** Again thanks Todd for very cool points **

[4wheels]

One other point to add - we need to stop thinking there is a one size fits all solution to each problem. CHL is appropriate for some - not for others. Some people understand guns - others don't. Some people understand computers - others don't.

[WCB]

And I carry a gun because the police are 8-10 minutes away. Same reason a teacher should...

[Axe Man]

Just a thought in teachers having a stressful job. Probably not any more than anyone else with a profession. As a coach I can say being a teacher is the least of my work related stress. I've called defense in hundreds of big games including a state championship, state semi-finals twice and numerous quarterfinal games. That was stressful and makes daily tasks pretty easy to deal with. My buddy asked me why I didn't shake when I shot my first bow deer this year. I told him there wasn't 8,000 people watching me do it. Pretty easy!

I honestly feel like a sitting duck in the class room. If someone walks down the hall with a gun, me and my students are pretty much relying on luck of the draw to make it out. I would gladly carry and would prefer nobody knew if I was. I think the idea that we could might deter some crazies.

[tvc184]

By saying armed security guard I am not talking about a rent-a-cop ( no offense to truely qualified security guards), I am talking about trained law enforcement officers. I mean those people with detailed training to know how to react in a similar situation.

Although I think a CHL is okay for SELF defense, the lack of training associated with it means that we are not trained to go into combat against an assailant. The concept behind CHL is "get your butt OUT of a bad situation." Not, "Go get INTO a bad situation." I understand some of the points made here, truly I do. I just would like to see someone with true combat skills placed in our schools, not someone that you can't necessarily depend on in a firefight. I think our LEOs and military personnel on this site could attest to the fact that when the bullets start flying, people have a tendency to truly understand their mortality. Luckily there are many brave people in our country. But, being TRAINED to meet these threats is, in my opinion, a must if you are going to head INTO danger.

Todd

That is what I believe is a misconception or at least not what I think a teacher possessing a firearm on campus is for. I don't think that teachers should attack a shooter. The teacher's job is not to play cop but to defend her class. Let's look at some of these high profile shootings.

At Virginia Tech, deadliest one person shooting incident in our history. The shooter, Cho, went into the first classroom and killed 10 people and wounded two others. Cho then went across the hall and entered another classroom, killing five and wounding six. He then tried to get into two other rooms but ran into barricades but eventually breached one and killed two people (the others had time to escape due to the barricaded door). Cho then went to the other barricaded door and breached it, killing 12 more people and wounded six more. He then reentered one of the previous rooms and killed a person that had survived the earlier attack in the same room. But when Cho attempted to enter a new room, the people inside managed to put a heavy table in front of the door and a barricade that actually worked. Sometime after that, Cho killed an instructor that came to see what was happening and then killed himself.

What is the major factor in this largest death total? It was people trapped in a room that could not be locked and they were defenseless. Even though they heard the shootings happening, all they could do was cower and hope to hold the door. In the one room where they managed to get the door barricaded, no one was even wounded. And what did Cho do all this damage with? An AR or some other scary looking gun? Nope, he had a compact Glock 19 and a Walther .22.

But let's go back to the one that started it all off, Columbine. There was a cop on duty at the school and he engaged Harris and Klebold within five minutes of the incident starting. At that time there were only two deaths. They two killers then retreated to the library where unfortunately 56 people fled to hide. Being trapped and with no defense, that is where the majority of people were killed and wounded (22 total victims). For the next half hour Harris and Klebold wandered around but found no more trapped victims and they injured and killed no one else. Again, defenseless people were trapped in a room.

What happened at Sandy Hook? After shots were fired in the office and heard over the loud speaker system, the shooter entered (yet again) a classroom and killed the teacher and 15 children. He then went onto to another room where the teacher was trying to hide children in closets and cabinets. She then got into between Lanza and the children and was shot dead along with other children that were fleeing. He then tried to enter other rooms and closets but some teachers had managed to hide children and barricade the doors. The majority of the children killed were caught defenseless in a classroom that could not keep the shooter out.

Are we seeing a pattern? Trapped victims in a room where they could not escape, could not keep the shooter out and had no means of defense other than to beg for their lives from insane people.

Does a teacher need to run into a hallway and start blasting away like Mel Gibson in a Lethal Weapon shootout? Maybe the teacher should simply be inside a locked classroom with a good door and if a shooter manages to breach the door, have the ability to take him out rather than simply submit to death. In each one of these high profile massacres, most victims came from being trapped and defenseless. As we can see from Virginia Tech, the room that was barricaded suffered no injuries and many students were saved at Sandy Hook in the same manner.

When 9-11 happened, what was one of the first responses to the terror attacks? The government mandated hardened cockpit doors. Then they placed air marshalls on planes but not every plane and not with open carried weapons. Hmmm.... concealed guns and hardened doors. Nope, we'd better not do that with schools and save children but it appears to be a good start for aircraft.

I will ask, what is the purpose of arming teachers? Is it to make SWAT officers out of them? Heck, maybe we won't even need a police response except an after the fact investigation, right? Obviously we don't need to turn the teachers into Navy SEALS. How many people have handguns in their own bedrooms but don't have tactical training? The average response is to shoot when attacked when the bad guy enters your hallway or bedroom, not become trained killers.

Why not the same for teachers? How many people would have been saved in Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook if the second room that was attacked had a person or persons with a concealed handgun that the shooter(s) did not know about? We can never end all shootings as you can't stop a nut from the attempt but is 5 deaths better than 35? Remember at Columbine, there was an officer on campus and two people were dead before he could even engage them. You can't stop the attempt but you can possibly end it much sooner and by saving many lives.

Why aren't we making doors that automatically lock from the outside and open outward so they can't be easily breached by kicking them in? Why aren't we "allowing" (not forcing) at least some teachers to be armed (with proper training) so they can defend from that guy that will try to trap them in the room?

Those don't have to be the end all. Better entry security is good, cops on campus will also help and maybe some other elements but it seems like the doors to stop the trapping and allowing teachers the ability to defend are the quickest and cheapest way to respond right now.

[BoneDigger]

I agree that if we allowed teachers to carry a gun, then they would need to protect their class. This may be hard to do if there are only one or two teachers carrying in the whole school. As I, and M2, and some others have said, most teachers don't WANT to carry. So, unless the gunman just happens to hit the class with the CHL, he would still have easy targets.

The alternative would be that the teacher with the CHL would have to leave his or her class unattended while they went off to address the shooter down the hall, not knowing if there might be more than one shooter.

These are the concerns that make me ask, why not more hired protection who's only concern is addressing the shooter? Perhaps someone with kevlar, bigger guns, and more training?

Todd

[tvc184]

I agree that if we allowed teachers to carry a gun, then they would need to protect their class. This may be hard to do if there are only one or two teachers carrying in the whole school. As I, and M2, and some others have said, most teachers don't WANT to carry. So, unless the gunman just happens to hit the class with the CHL, he would still have easy targets.

The alternative would be that the teacher with the CHL would have to leave his or her class unattended while they went off to address the shooter down the hall, not knowing if there might be more than one shooter.

These are the concerns that make me ask, why not more hired protection who's only concern is addressing the shooter? Perhaps someone with kevlar, bigger guns, and more training?

Todd

We can put a police officer that is trained in first person shooters (I have been to three classes on it) in every hallway. That would be a great deterrent and likely a good response in case someone tries it anyway.

Just get ready with your bank account.

On the other hand we can just harden the doors and make it mandatory to lock them when class starts and it will hinder many of the shooters or at least they way they are happening now. A shooter can always attack between classes but he won't have trapped victims that are easy slaughter and save all the money of all the armed guards. As has been brought up, we might have a better chance of winning the lottery than being the victim or having children as victims of a mass murder.

[lt87]

Teacher speaking who has his CHL...

The last thing I want to do is:
-spend tax payer dollars for teachers to be "trained" to carry and use a firearm in school.
-increase liability for schools and teachers because weapons are now introduced by staff members. Also spending more money...
-have teachers turn into vigilantes at the OK Corral.

Also, 99% of the teachers at my school are not female. That is excluding coaches, even though we have many female coaches. If everyone is concerned about "saving just one" think about childhood obesity. Kills kids everyday in cafeterias across the date and country.

[WCB]

Like I said before, if the schools were not gun free zones I bet there would be less shootings. Just a guess though but it does seem to me that most of these shootings are in places where guns are not allowed... The crazies maybe are not as crazy as some think. None of'em run into a police station or gun store now do they??

[Shane]

Great thoughts tvc and Todd. There are obviously no easy one-size-fits-all answers. Cops in every school would be ideal for protection, but probably cost prohibitive for lots of schools. Better security (doors, locks, alarms, etc.) combined with a plan of action other than "hide under the desk and hope for the best" would be wise. Combine that with the public knowledge that (one way or another) the schools are not gun-free zones, and we'd probably see a lot less of these already rare and horrible incidents happening. When they did still happen, the death toll would likely be reduced as well. There's nothing at all that we could do that will absolutely prevent a nutjob from ever doing this again, sadly.

[mojohunter]

I posted this on another thread but not much talk after I posted.

I am split on the idea. It sounds good. I understand where the rural ISDs that already have this in place are coming from. It is easy to say teachers should be able to carry to protect their classes. All schools have action plans when there is a crisis.

We went through this scenario at the school i am at a few years ago, not a mock scenario. THE REAL DEAL! It is easy to say where you stand until you lived this scenario knowing what the SROs have trained to do in this scenario. The sheriffs/police/swat teams swept through every classroom. In fact, a sheriff had his pistol pointed directly at my chest asking for identification when they swept my class. As you are sitting in your classroom you hear the door handle jiggling, a million things are running through your mind. Is it the gunman? Is it the police? Is it the gunman forcing the principal, janitor, etc., to open the door because they have a master key? How am going to defend the kids and myself? My Family?

If I am allowed to carry, how do LEOs know I am not the gunman? I have a family with 2 kids. I don't want to be a victim because I have a gun and mistaken for the gunman. But, I do want to be able to defend my students and myself.

I am all for teachers being able to protect students and themselves. Maybe have all classrooms where the teachers have access to a safe with a gun, but an alarm goes off when the safe is open. The safe can't be accessible to students at all, no glass. The safe needs to be set up like the AEDs, when the glass is broke to get an AED, it sets off an alarm or calls into 911.
Just a thought from a teacher who has been in this situation. It was a scary day. I can only imagine what those have been through when there was actually a shooter. Fortunately, there wasn't one on our campus that day.

[Slow-n-steady]

I am a middle school administrator (assistant principal) at a large middle school in SA. In my opinion, if funding were made available,the best case scenario would be to have a professionally trained LEO in each school with his/her patrol car parked right outside the front door. I would also like teachers and admin to have the choice to carry with proper training. I am all for making training above and beyond the chl class a requirement. I think that if we are carrying a gun primarily to protect other people's children we owe it to parents to be well trained. The conversations I have had with my teachers indicates that most would not carry on campus but there are a few including some retired military that would. What it all boils down to for me is if a shooter enters my school I want the tools and training necessary to defend my students. Like jaghunter58 said, I would protect my students the same as I would my own three sons, at all costs. The only difference is that I am only allowed to be armed when I am not at work.