Schools and Active Shooters

Can we have a rational discussion? Probably not. Should Teachers Carry Guns in Schools? | USCCA

What happens if there is an active school shooter. People, for whatever reason, don't want to protect schools. That would mean we would harden them, and provide security. Why? Because that isn't what it was like in their idyllic childhood. So what do you do, if a bad guy, or a crazy person, shows up with a gun?

It takes law enforcement anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to respond to an emergency. The FBI reported that 69 percent of active threat events end in five minutes or less, and 67 percent are over before officers arrive. For rural schools, response times can stretch up to 20 minutes or longer — minutes that schools can’t afford to lose.

The last couple of events that come to mind were at churches, and the person was stopped by someone, not a cop, and a school shooting that was stopped by a cop.

So what should happen in that 10 or 20 minutes? Assuming of course that you don't live in a place like Uvalde, Texas, where the cops will show up and do nothing.

People in an active shooter incident have 3 choices. They can run, they can hide, or they can fight.

According to the research, [from The Purdue Homeland Security Institute,] when all the victims hide, the survival rate was 1.8 percent. When all the victims fought back, the survival probability was 98 percent. Their findings showed that the introduction of an SRO, armed staff member or both into a school shooting event resulted in significantly higher survival rates.

Click thru and read the article. Pros. Cons. The feelings of teachers. There is a lot about "feelings" when there isn't data. This is followed up with a spinkling of "might" and "could." But the article does look at both sides of the question.

State laws vary significantly. Some states, like Ohio, have robust programs like FASTER, while others allow individual districts to make decisions. Kansas permits arming teachers but faces insurance challenges. Policies frequently change, so it is crucial for teachers and parents to check with their state’s most recent legislation.

As I said, read the whole thing.

And here is my favorite photo of what I consider the most useless SWAT team in America. They sure look spiffy in their uniforms with their tactical gear and their diversity.