Teachers, Concealed Carry, & Protecting Students (UPDATED)

This is an old Zoltar Speaks! blog post.

I have no problem with individual teachers concealed carrying a firearm for protection but if they are going to do so in a school environment there should be some base standards applied for such a privileged. Those base standards should be set by the municipality where the school resides, the school district and the local police need to work together to set those base standards.

Too many people perceived that a person carrying a concealed carry firearm have innate responsibilities that are beyond the basics of individual protection in an immediate life or death situation. Just because a person has a concealed carry firearm does not turn them into a tactically trained swat police officer or a door kicking infantry soldier/marine that is somehow required to track down and eliminate evil; that perception is false, it’s not what individual concealed carry is all about.

For civilians; using a concealed carry firearm is a last resort kind of thing, it’s only to be used in an immediate life or death situation. In an active school shooting situation, I would never expect a teacher with a concealed carry firearm to do anything but to hunker down in a defensive position and protect the immediate students within his/her care. I would never expect a teacher to actively venture into the hallways to hunt down and shoot an active school shooter, that kind of direct aggressive tactic requires some tactical training and should be left to trained professionals or individuals making their own choice but I would not recommend untrained teachers engage in it.

Some things a teacher should think about when considering tracking down an active shooter are; when these kinds of terrible situations arise and a teacher chooses to bravely go hunt down an active shooter, that teacher leaves their classroom full of students unprotected and vulnerable. Another thing to consider when tracking down an active school shooter is that when the police arrive they will have a really hard time identifying who the real shooter is with armed teacher(s) in the hallways. When a tactically trained officer sees a firearm in an ongoing active shooter situation and lives are in imminent danger honest mistakes can be made with tragic results.

Schools can no longer be soft targets.

Consider this: what if the first ever school shooter in the United States was taken down by a classroom full of snarling angry students and beat to death with their crayons, cellphones, books, chairs, shoes, pencils, pens, notebooks, purses, emptied desk drawer, Bunsen burner, chalkboard erasers, etc. etc. do you think a potential school shooter would reconsider their plan about walking into a school that was ready and wiling to put them down? Part of changing a school from a soft target to a hard target is for those that occupy the target zone to choose not to be the equivalent of sheep in a pen expecting a sheepdog to protect them instead the occupants need to choose to fight like a sheepdog. Cowering like pinned in sheep will not stop a shooter that enters a classroom, the occupants must attack like viscous snarling sheepdogs wanting to tear the head off the shooter and shit down “his” throat.

Teachers:
This may not be what you signed up for; however, life is not fair and you may be the last resort to prepare a classroom full of scared students to fight for their life.  What will you do?  You better think about it ahead of time so if the time comes you are reasonably prepared.

Since most classrooms are pretty wide open and lack secure places to hide, how would you prepare a classroom full of scared students to fight for their life if necessary. Here an idea of what to say, “If a shooter comes through that door we must combine our strengths together into one fighting force and take down the shooter. I will ambush the shooter first and then everyone else attacks in mass with anything that can be used as a weapon and don’t stop attacking until the shooter is disarmed and completely immobilized. Today even our pens are weapons. If that shooter comes in here, that shooter will be stopped right here!!! For now remain quiet, confident, out of sight, and focused.”

Modify that to your hearts content and be completely honest with yourself; what would you say to a classroom full of scared students that have a real possibility that they could die in a few minutes?  Would you give them a fighting chance or tell them to hide and text their loved ones goodbye. There is physical strength in numbers, use that strength to insure confidence and resolve and please remember that “fighters” that are focused on texting are not focused on fighting, turn the damn phones off until further notice!

When it comes to an active school shooter situation and teachers with students in their class, think of it this way…

General Orders For Sentries (in part): I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved.

For teachers it should read: Teachers will guard/protect their students to the best of their ability and not stop guarding/protecting their students until the police, or other official entity, instructs them otherwise.

The following applies to everyone…

Be prepared, be willing to fight for your life, and never give up.

ADDENDUM (March 2, 2018)
On a more general note: I read a study somewhere years ago that there will always be a sector of society (some relative percentage) that are criminals and as the population goes up the number of criminals goes up with it; however, the relative percentage doesn’t fluctuate too much from year to year. If I remember right; that same study said that the frequency of crimes increases as the population goes up because of the change in the number of criminals increases along with population growth not necessary because the percentages of criminals have increased. From my perspective, the number of violent crimes as a percentage of crime in general, appears to have gone up; there appears to be a higher percentage of modern day criminals that are willing to be violent than in the past, maybe that just my perception because the numbers have all gone up. Criminals that choose to be violent, sometimes choose to use firearms and sometimes the violence is committed using other tools; it’s not the tools or the non-criminal gun owning public that’s the problem, it’s the criminals choosing violence.

Do you know that the police cannot protect you from immediate threats of criminal activity, especially imminent violence, unless they are physically present; it’s your responsibility to protect yourself and your family from criminal activity. In case after case after case, the Police end up picking up the pieces after the fact and hope evidence can lead to an arrest. It’s not their fault that they can’t be our personal and family body guards, it’s just how things work. Life can be terribly unfair, but more importantly, life can sometimes be violent and we as human beings need to be reasonably prepared to protect our own family. Do we choose to cower as we are being beaten, raped, or shot to death by criminals, terrorists, or the like or do we choose to fight back? You never give up when you’re protecting yourself or your family – NEVER GIVE UP!