WKRC-TV Channel 12 in Cincinnati reports:
The teachers and administrators train side by side with local law enforcement and paramedics at John Benner’s Tactical Defense Institute. They’re training for a nightmare, when classrooms and hallways become killing fields. . . .
Parents in a district asked that their staff be armed. The board OK’d the training and the carrying of weapons on campus by trained staff. . . . .
The instructors are from John Benner’s Tactical Defense Institute in Adams County, Ohio . . . . Benner himself is a former SWAT commander.
He said, “We’ve believed in this for a long time, but never thought we’d be able to pull it off until Sandy Hook. And then everything changed. Now people realize if you don’t have somebody in the school that’s armed willing and capable you’re gonna lose a lot of people.”
The cost of training is entirely covered by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, a pro-gun organization.
Joe Eaton of Buckeye said, “There are teachers who are willing to die for the children we leave with them every day. When they come to us and say we need a solution, we need something that will happen. When we have experts that can provide the training to provide these solutions our foundation is obligated to make this happen for the schools.” . . .
Some interesting information from Utah, where teachers across the entire state are allowed to carry at school. Utah definitely does this right as Utah law prevents districts from asking the teachers that have guns.
This is something that is long overdue and should not have taken a tragedy at Sandy Hook to wake people up. As a teacher in Florida, I know of many colleagues who carry into their classrooms on a daily basis, legal or not. And who can blame them? I found a gun in a backpack once while looking for a stolen calculator. You never know what’s going through the minds of these kids these days.