Only 24 hours to train them to shoot
Teachers in American schools are training to use weapons to protect their students
The program keeps the identities of the trainees confidential.
From the source
Critics say the training period is insufficient.
From the source
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Mandy, a kindergarten teacher in Ohio, does what she can to secure her classroom against a gunman who breaks into the school.
A bookcase was placed at the entrance, in case a barrier was needed.
In an orange bowl, Mandy kept emergency supplies, including pepper spray, to direct at the attacker, and a tube sock, to carry something heavy and throw at the attacker.
But after the murders of 19 children and two teachers in Ovaldi, Texas, Mandy felt growing despair.
Her school is located in an old building, where there are no automatic locks on the classroom doors, and there is no police officer on campus.
“We feel helpless,” she said.
What is available is not enough.” She decided she needed something much more powerful: a nine-millimeter pistol.
So she signed up for gun-carrying training at school.
Like the others, Mandy asked to be identified by her first name only, due to school district rules restricting information about employees who carry firearms.
Ten years ago, it was very rare for school staff to carry weapons on a permanent basis.
Today, after a seemingly endless series of mass shootings, the strategy has become a leading solution touted by Republicans and gun rights advocates, who say allowing teachers, principals and supervisors to be armed gives schools "combat power" in the event of an attack.
armed guardians
At least 29 states allow individuals, other than police or security officials, to carry guns in schoolyards.
As of 2018, the last year for which statistics are available, federal survey data estimated that 2.6% of public schools had armed faculty.
In Florida, more than 1,300 school staff work as armed guardians in 45 school districts, out of 74 in the state, according to state officials.
The program was set up after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.
In Texas, at least 402 school districts (about a third in the state) participate in a program that allows certain people, including faculty, to carry guns, according to the Texas Association of School Boards.
Another program that requires more training is used by fewer districts.
Participation in both has increased since 2018.
In the weeks after the Ovaldi shootings, Ohio lawmakers made it easier for teachers and other school staff to carry guns.
While Democrats, police representatives, teachers' unions, and gun control advocates vehemently oppose this strategy, who say school gun programs are not a solution to the problem;
It will only lead to more risks.
Previous polls showed that the vast majority of teachers did not want to bear arms.
outrageous
The law in Ohio has been particularly controversial because it requires no more than 24 hours of training, along with eight hours of rehabilitation annually.
Michael Weinman, the director of government affairs for the Ohio State Police, the state's largest law enforcement organization, denounced it. "To us, this is outrageous," he said.
By comparison, police officers in the state undergo more than 700 hours of training.
School resource officers (campus assigned police) must complete an additional 40 hours.
In contrast, proponents say 24 hours is sufficient, because while police training includes everything from traffic violations to legal issues, school staff focus on mastering the use of firearms and actively responding to shootings.
Studies of school personnel who carry weapons have been limited, and research has so far found little evidence of their effectiveness.
There is, too, little evidence that school security officials are widely effective in preventing school shootings, which are statistically rare.
Nevertheless, arming school staff is acceptable, and a slight majority of parents and adults support it, in recent opinion polls.
Four bloody school shootings have occurred in Newtown, Connecticut, Ovaldi and Santa Fe, Texas, and Parkland, Florida, in the past 10 years.
It was this potential threat that led Mandy and seven other teachers to a shooting range in farm fields, in Rittman, Northeast Ohio.
real confrontation
Teacher Mandy, in her forties, arrived at training with anticipation and nervousness.
She was a teacher for 12 years and had children.
She wanted to make sure she could carry her gun safely in the presence of the students.
"My students hug me all day," she said.
Then there was the possibility of confrontation with a real gunman.
Can three days of training prepare her for the unimaginable?
“Time is all that matters," Mandy says.
The teachers came from Ohio and neighboring Oklahoma for the 26-hour course offered by Move Faster Saves Lives, a leading firearms training program for school staff.
The course is sponsored by the Bucky Firearms Foundation, an Ohio pressure group that has supported the new state law for training school personnel.
additional burden
Teacher Mandy during throwing practice.
Source: The New York Times.
Over the course of three days, teacher Mandy trained in shooting, using first aid kits, and dealing with a violent attacker.
Her presence at the training site, firing her pistol in the blazing sun, was very different from what she had been used to in the classroom, dancing to songs with five-year-olds and wallpapering her classroom with student artwork.
The teacher is practicing pistol at a time when America has painfully failed to bring about a mass ceasefire.
This places an additional burden on the faculty as they have shouldered enormous responsibilities, most important of which are accompanying students during the pandemic, dealing with children's mental health crises, and overcoming conflicts over the teaching of race and other issues.
Now some are forced to defend their schools by force of arms.
only way
The gun lobby in America supports teacher training.
archival
Over the past decade, the Bucky Firearms Foundation estimates it has spent more than $1 million to train about 2,600 instructors.
Her approach is closely aligned with the argument that has become a hallmark of the NRA and the gun lobby, and that "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
From this point of view, teachers are, after all, the “good” people.
"We trust them and they are with our kids every day," said Jim Irvine, a pilot and veteran gun rights advocate and president of the Bucky Firearms Foundation and a volunteer with the teacher training program.
Their philosophy is that saving lives during a school shooting is a matter of speed, and that schools cannot afford to wait for the police.
At Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, in 2012, the first 911 call was made about five minutes later;
The first officers arrived at the school less than four minutes later.
However, 20 children and six adults were killed.
In Parkland, Florida, the gunman killed 17 people in less than six minutes.
Even in Ovaldi, where police have been criticized for waiting at the scene for more than an hour, the gunman is believed to have fired more than 100 shots in the first three minutes, according to a state report.
'Time is all that matters,' said Irvine.
Simply".
Of the eight school staff trained, Mandy was in some ways an exception, being the only woman in the group.
Many others were administrators, including supervisors.
And everyone had some relief with guns.
Mandy compared her husband's hunting, on the weekends, to shooting at a shooting range.
She said she received further training in the use of firearms, including the principles of carrying a gun, a prerequisite for participating in the Move Faster Saves Lives programme.
2,600 teachers receive gun training under the supervision of the Bucky Firearms Foundation.
Studies of school personnel who carry weapons have been limited, and research has so far found little evidence of their effectiveness.
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