Teachers at schools in Utah have the option of opting into gun training and being trained to “shoot to kill.” It’s part of a move in the state to protect against potential school shootings.
By Matthew Wilson for Wide Open Spaces
Schools in the state also deployed a guardian program, which sees an armed guardian patrolling the hallways as well as the classrooms. This person is essentially a volunteer and can’t be a teacher or school staff. However, Republican Governor Spencer Cox also signed last March legislation that would allow teachers to carry firearms in the school.
It’s called the Educator-Protector Program, and it’s had both supporters as well as critics. Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith is holding a course where teachers can learn how to act in an active shooter event. The training teaches educators who carry firearms at school to shoot to kill.
Speaking with Daily Mail, Christy Belt, a teacher, opened up about the training program. She said the training taught her how to block the door to retrieve her firearm in time.
Teachers Trained To Shoot
“I have things that I can do and plans for how to do it so it helps me feel more powerful, more in charge,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and Professor of Education with the University of Virginia, created his own prevention training for educators. Cornell teaches prevention and identifying warning signs instead.
“Prevention involves building relationships with students and helping them to resolve conflicts before they escalate into violence,” Cornell said. “In schools, we have special challenges because students are less mature and more impulsive than adults, and are more likely to make threatening statements that are not serious.”
He continued, “Schools want to avoid overreacting to threats that are not serious and at the same time, recognize when a threat is serious and take appropriate actions.”
Several people criticize Utah’s carry laws. Instead, they should focus on preventive methods. Moms Demand Action, whose parent company is Everytown for Gun Safety, condemned the law in a statement.
“Let’s keep our educators centered on what they do best – teaching. We should be working on finding ways to keep guns out of the wrong hands and out of the classroom – not inviting them into our schools,” Jaden Christensen, a volunteer with the Utah chapter of Moms Demand Action said in a statement.
[Moms Demand Action are typically not at all supportive of any Molon Labe sentiments.]
She continued, “It’s shameful that this new law will do the opposite. We urge lawmakers on both sides and Governor Cox to come together and work on comprehensive gun safety policies that tackle our state’s suicide crisis, and protect our kids and communities, from Salt Lake City to St. George, from senseless acts of gun violence.”
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Places where guns are not allowed are an invitation to places where people are allowed to have weapons. They typically have the strictest gun laws. Chicago has very strict gun laws, but had more than 150 mass shootings in the last three years. The gun laws in North Carolina are very pro individual gun ownership with Durham being pretty low on the list of mass shootings at 9 during the same time. Gun laws, like in Chicago, must be aggressively enforced, or they are no good. I do believe that both techniques to save lives and injuries are valuable. We need to try to prevent the problem to begin with, but also need to be prepared to stop it if it occurs to reduce injuries and deaths. I also believe that the schools need to teach the value of human lives. People would be less likely to attempt to harm someone if they had more respect for human lives.
Do this nationwide
Sounds like a good idea to me.
Itis about damn time this was adopted. The Dems have kept security out of our schools since Obuma, and how many children have we lost due to that stupidity? They have been doing this in Israel for decades, and it works.
I applaud Utah on their action. I am a retired high school teacher. When I was teaching, I didn’t carry, but I brought a firearm in and locked it in a desk drawer where I could get to it if I needed it. If I had been caught, I would have been fired, buy I felt safer knowing I had it.
Jaden Christensen, a volunteer with the Utah chapter of Moms Demand Action says: “Let’s keep our educators centered on what they do best – teaching….”
But teaching includes introducing the concepts of keeping guns out of the wrong hands and out of the classroom and consideration of methods to do just that.
Please note that “A gun-Free zone” in schools does invite the criminal to a risk-free operation.
Well-trained gun operators in schools is a smart idea. Just make a clear law.
All able bodied teachers should be weapon trained if they wish and issued concealed weapons if they wish to.