The 1999 atrocity at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, triggered a trend of mass murders committed by hate-filled losers. Misguided people, some with good intentions and some hoping that a meaningless gesture would make them appear to be doing something called for more “gun control.” However, another school of thought also came to the forefront. What about armed teachers and faculty?
The Importance of Armed Teachers
More pragmatic observers recognized the importance of fighting fire with fire and putting armed security in place. There were different approaches.
In some communities, the answer was SROs (School Resource Officers)—uniformed police stationed in the schools. There were problems, though. Police were already over-extended and understaffed when the Columbine atrocity occurred a quarter century ago. That situation has become much worse in the 2020s.
Also, some “woke” school boards and administrators feel that the presence of uniformed police in school intimidates students. For this reason, they don’t want them there.
Columbine High School
Moreover, the identified protector is easier for a crafty murderer to maneuver around. Consider that seminal massacre at Columbine High School—case one.The two crazed teen perpetrators used explosives to distract the SROs who were present. They then engaged them with gunfire at some 70 yards or greater distance before entering the school and beginning their killing spree.
Parkland School Massacre
For case two,we’ll cite the Parkland school massacre in Florida. In this case, the SRO took cover and never moved forward as the perpetrator claimed victim after helpless victim.
Criminally charged with child endangerment, the SRO’s excuse was that he couldn’t tell where the gunfire was coming from. His defense attorney found witnesses who said the same thing, resulting in his acquittal.
Uvalde School Massacre
We all remember the sickening case three—the Uvalde school massacre. Uvalde had its own Independent School District police department. Unfortunately, the Chief of that department fibrillated like a dying heart. As a result, positive entry for rescue was delayed for far too long, ending in a terrible casualty count of the dead and wounded.
At this writing, that (former) Chief is facing criminal charges, as is another lawman present. Likewise, some other officers have reportedly been fired or “allowed to resign.”
These collective experiences tell us that while the presence of uniformed police will certainly deter some cowardly murderers, more SROs are not the whole answer.
The Armed Faculty Concept
Case four, the Ma’alot school massacre in Israel in 1974, saw 115 people taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists and more than 30 innocent people killed. That nation reacted with a program of arming school personnel and volunteer adult members of students’ families.
They were armed with concealed 9mm pistols in plain clothes instead of uniforms. So, they could not be identified by potential killers until they already had those killers in their sights. The armed personnel were trained by an element of the nation’s civil guard.
When anti-gun people in Israel wailed that arming teachers was a bad idea, Premier Golda Meir famously snapped back, “We will not make politics on the backs of our children.”
The armed protector program was put in place.
The reported result? In subsequent attacks, as soon as the terrorist opened fire, he was shot down by staff. Word spread. As a result, the attacks on schools dropped off: being killed by a teacher wasn’t part of the terrorists’ plan.
The only subsequent attack on Israeli students that I know of that reached massacre level was case five.It took place in 1997 at the ironically named Island of Peace in Jordan. In this case, the Israeli adults on the field trip had been forbidden to carry their guns to protect the kids.
Similar success stories are cases six and seven, in which the Philippines and Peru adopted the armed, trained faculty concept to protect students from terrorist attacks.
Deterrent Effect in the USA
The deterrent effect of letting the public know that unrecognizable protectors will shoot them if they enter a school armed has also been seen in the United States.
In the January 4, 2024 edition of Education Week, we find this:
“Arming teachers has been a strategy lawmakers have proposed in response to high-profile school shootings since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Conn., in 2012, and some district leaders have made it a reality in their schools. But the strategy comes with a lot of risk, and there’s little research to help school leaders determine how effective it is, experts say.
“’There’s almost precisely zero research on the effectiveness of arming teachers and how it works in practice,’ said Heather Schwartz, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. ‘That, to me, is the crying need here—to learn more about how this would really work. What are the downsides? What are the upsides?’”
I believe we can give Ms. Schwartz some input. A great many schools in this country—though not yet a majority, unfortunately—have adopted an armed faculty program. They are normally trained by local law enforcement.
FASTER
As a model, I will cite as case eight the excellent work done by FASTER in Ohio. FASTER stands for Faculty-Administration Safety Training for Emergency Response. Geared for armed school personnel, the classes are taught by such luminaries in the firearms world as John Benner and Chris Cerino.
The project has received much media attention. Schools adopting the program generally announce it, letting any potential mass murderer know that an attack there will be met with lethal force. In fact, this is the protocol in some other places that have adopted the “armed teacher” paradigm.
How have they performed? We don’t know yet. As of now, no criminal has entered an Ohio school with the intent of murdering children. Deterrent effect? Logical critical thinking says, “Yes.”
“You Will Not Know Who They Are.”
Case Nine is a good example. A county school system in the deep South went with the concept—trained by the sheriff’s department. Cops were on the confidential list of those who knew which faculty members were authorized to be armed. This was to reduce the likelihood of a responding officer seeing that person with a gun and shooting them by mistake.
To make things clear to the public, the superintendent of schools did an interview that appeared as a conspicuous front-page story in the county newspaper. The essence of the superintendent’s statement was, “There will be armed personnel in our schools, highly trained. You will not know who they are. If you enter one of our schools with the intent to harm our children, we will kill you.”
No one should be surprised that there have been no attacks on any of those schools.
No Mass Shootings at Schools with Armed Faculty
Case nine is essentially an overview of schools nationwide that have armed and trained their faculties. None of those have yet had a mass murder, either. Professor John Lott, a master researcher in the field of armed self-defense, said as much in an article he co-authored for the Washington Times with Rep. Thomas Massie.
Violent Criminals Bypass Schools They Thought Might Be Armed
There is ample evidence that mass killers don’t want their evil deeds cut short by armed good guys and gals.
Case ten went down in 1999 when a racist anti-semite fired some 70 shots into the Los Angeles Jewish Community Center, shooting many. After he fled, he shot and killed a man on the street solely because the victim wasn’t white.
After his capture, this animal said he originally intended to shoot up a synagogue. However, he was afraid there might be armed security who could shoot back.
More recently, the Nashville school shooting perpetrator did something similar. In case eleven, the perpetrator was killed by swiftly responding Nashville police. Written materials that were left behind indicated the murderer bypassed a preferred target for fear that they might be armed.
Resting my Case
Many of these twisted killers plan to commit suicide, sometimes quoting from Invictus, “I am captain of my fate and master of my soul.” Others fantasize about dying in a sick “blaze of glory,” shooting it out with a SWAT team.
But none of them fantasize about being shot in the back of the head by Miss Grundy, the history teacher.
