Mandi, a kindergarten teacher in the US state of Ohio, had already done what she could to protect her students from a gunman. But after the massacre that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, she felt growing despair. Her school occupies an old building, with no automatic locks on the classroom doors and without the presence of a police officer. “People feel powerless,” she says. “That’s not enough.”
Mandi decided he needed something much more powerful: a 9mm pistol. She signed up for training that would give her permission to carry a weapon at school. Like others named in this story, Mandi asked to be identified only by her first name due to her school district’s policies, which limit the disclosure of information about employees who carry firearms.
Ten years ago, cases of school staff carrying weapons were very rare. Today, after a seemingly endless string of massacres, the strategy has become a solution promoted by Republicans and gun rights advocates. For them, authorizing teachers, principals and superintendents to carry guns will give schools a chance to resist if they are attacked.
At least 29 states authorize people who are not police or security officers to carry guns in schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2018, the last year for which statistics are available, federal data estimated that 2.6% of public schools had armed teachers.
It is likely that this percentage has increased since then.
According to Florida officials, more than 1,300 school staff serve as armed guards in 45 of the state’s 74 school districts. The show was created after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.
At least 402 school districts in Texas, one-third of those in the state, participate in a program that authorizes designated persons, including school officials, to carry firearms. Another program, which requires more training, is used by a smaller number of districts. Participation in both programs has grown since 2018.
In the weeks after the Uvalde massacre, Ohio lawmakers took steps to make it easier for teachers and other school staff to carry guns.
The strategy is strongly opposed by Democrats, law enforcement organizations, teachers unions and gun control advocates. For all of them, far from solving the problem, gun programs in schools will only create a greater risk. Past surveys have indicated that the vast majority of teachers do not want to carry a gun.
The law passed in Ohio is especially controversial because it requires only 24 hours of training in the use of weapons, plus eight hours a year for certificate renewal.
There are few studies on the carrying of weapons by school staff, and the research done so far has found little evidence that it is effective.
But the idea of arming school officials is gaining acceptance, being approved by a small majority of parents and adults, according to recent opinion polls.
Of the five largest school shootings ever recorded, four have taken place in the last ten years: in Newtown (Connecticut), Uvalde (Texas), Parkland (Florida) and Santa Fe (Texas).
It was this possibility that led Mandi and seven other educators to a shooting range nestled between hay fields and country roads in Rittman, northeast Ohio.
Over the course of three days, Mandi trained in marksmanship, learned how to tie tourniquets and how to react to situations where there is an active shooter in a certain location. Her presence at the shooting range, firing her pistol in the scorching sun, forms a stark contrast to what she does in the classroom, where she dances and sings with her five-year-olds, distributes shaving cream for activities and covers the walls. of the room with the children’s drawings.
Mandi, who is in his 40s, arrived at shooting training in a mood of nervous anticipation. She has been a teacher for 12 years and has children. She wanted to make sure she could safely carry her weapon when she was with her students. “Kids keep hugging me,” she commented.
And there’s the prospect of facing a sniper in real life. Could three days of training prepare him for the unthinkable?
She and the other educators came from Ohio and as far away as Oklahoma to take a 26-hour course in Faster Saves Lives, a weapons training program for school officials. The program is run by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, an organization that upholds the Second Amendment to the US Constitution and works with one of Ohio’s top gun lobbying groups. The group in question, Buckeye Firearms Association, defended the new state law for school officials.
The foundation estimates that in the last ten years it has spent more than US$1 million (R$5.18 million) to train at least 2,600 educators to use weapons.
His approach coincides closely with an argument that has already become the watchword of the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby: “The only way to stop an armed bandit is with a well-armed person.”
In this view, teachers are the best example of “good people.” “We hand our kids over to teachers every day,” explains Jim Irvine, commercial pilot and longtime gun rights advocate. He is president of the Buckeye Firearms Foundation and serves as a volunteer in the direction of the Faster program.
Their philosophy is that saving lives during school massacres is a matter of quick reaction and that schools cannot afford to wait for the police to arrive.
At Sandy Hook High School in Newtown in 2012, the first 911 call was made after five minutes, and the first officers arrived at the school at least four minutes later. Even so, 20 children and six adults were killed. In Parkland, the gunman killed 17 people in less than six minutes.
Even in Uvalde, where the police are criticized for waiting in place for more than an hour, the shooter reportedly fired more than a hundred rounds in the first three minutes. “Time is the only thing that matters,” says Irvine. “It’s that simple.”
In the school district where Mandi works, the superintendent has ruled that gun applicants must be approved by the school board. In addition to doing Faster training, they have to meet annually with the sheriff’s department. And they can be taken out of the program if shooting skills are considered insufficient.
In the Faster program, much of the training focuses on weapon skills. The group spent hours practicing target practice – with targets both near and far, using left and right hands, with small circular targets and life-size human silhouettes.
Instructors gave technical and safety guidelines, timed people’s shots, and encouraged teachers and school administrators to be assertive.
Upon completion of the program, Mandi and her classmates were deemed fit to carry a gun at school under new Ohio law. They are part of a stealthy, growing, and somewhat experimental armed force that is present in schools. The results are far from known.
While there are reports of armed citizen intervention in massacres, such as the recent Indiana mall case, “this is an anomaly,” says shooting scholar Jaclyn Schildkraut, an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York. , in Oswego.
Most massacres end when the shooter is shot or subdued by the police, commits suicide or flees the scene.
For Mandi, the decision to carry a gun in class seemed like a better solution than wasp spray or a sock full of rocks.
She said she goes to shooting ranges weekly to train. And while she recognizes that other important measures could help prevent school shootings, she doesn’t think she can afford to wait for change. “We need to help children now, at this moment,” she says.
Translation by Clara Allain
