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"They will seek locations where they know there's going to be minimal chance of resistance."
"Over the past two or three years we've seen an explosion of legislative proposals to force schools to permit guns or to arm teachers."

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At least 17 people have died after a 19-year-old ex-pupil opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
It's the deadliest school shooting since 2012, when 26 people were killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Two weeks ago, the BBC's Joel Gunter looked at whether arming US teachers could help prevent future bloodshed.
Two schoolchildren died on Tuesday and 14 others suffered bullet wounds when a classmate opened fire outside a school in Benton, Kentucky. It was the third shooting incident at a school in 48 hours and the 11th in the three weeks since the start of the year.

The victims were Bailey Holt and Preston Cope, both 15. A 15-year-old boy was arrested and charged with the attack.

The story fell somewhere into the middle of the day's news agenda. "Americans have accepted these common atrocities as part of life here," wrote one commenter on the New York Times website. "Another day, another shooting spree, and no political will to do anything about it."

But there is political will building behind a certain sort of gun legislation - reforms that aim to increase, rather than decrease, the number of firearms in schools and other public buildings, and arm teachers and school staff as a means of defence.

Hours after the shooting in Kentucky, Republican State Senator Steve West rushed to file a bill that would allow Kentucky schools to have armed school marshals patrol the site. His bill joins another in the state which seeks to loosen gun restrictions around college campuses.

Mr West's bill received cross-party support from state Democratic Senator Ray Jones. "We need armed officers in every school in Kentucky," Mr Jones said. "That is a small price to pay if it saves one child's life."

The bill joins a raft of state legislation in recent years designed at putting more guns in schools. Most recently, the Michigan State Senate passed a bill in November which would allow teachers at primary, middle and high schools to carry a concealed handgun in class. Similar bills have been filed this year in Florida, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, South Carolina and West Virginia.

If successful, those states would join at least nine that already allow some form of concealed carry in high schools. Each fatal school shooting reignites a long-running debate over whether the solution is more gun control, or more guns.

Good guys, bad guys

Efforts to arm teachers and school staff were jumpstarted in the wake of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six teachers died. Facing a public outcry at the massacre, and renewed calls for gun control, the NRA pushed heavily in the opposite direction.

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun," said the NRA's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, a week after the shooting, and the catchphrase evolved into a philosophy that underpinned the NRA's key legislative priorities.

The lobby group published a report calling for armed officers or staff in every school in America, and in 2013, the year after Sandy Hook, seven states enacted laws permitting teachers or school staff to carry guns.

"Over the past two or three years we've seen an explosion of legislative proposals to force schools to permit guns or to arm teachers," said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "And it's not just pushing the idea that people need guns in schools to be safe, it's the idea that people need guns everywhere - city streets, public parks, even government buildings."

But advocates say these kinds of reforms are the only meaningful way to protect schoolchildren. They point in particular to more rural schools, where an emergency response from police may take too long in the context of an active shooter incident. They also argue that gun-free zones are creating "soft targets".

In Kentucky, home to Tuesday's shooting, Republican State Senator Tim Moore introduced bills in 2017 and again in 2018 in an effort to reduce restrictions around guns on school and college campuses.

"Whenever in our country people with evil intent seek to harm others, including innocent children, they will seek locations where they know there's going to be minimal chance of resistance," he said in a telephone interview.

"Allowing law abiding citizens who are properly trained, properly vetted, with a thorough background check and criminal check ... that is a deterrent."

'Mindset development'

School shootings erupted into the public consciousness in April 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. That massacre has since been eclipsed by shootings at Virginia Tech college (33 dead), Sandy Hook elementary school (25 dead), and 203 other shooting incidents in or around schools.

According to an FBI study of 160 active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2013, nearly a quarter occurred in educational settings, and more of half of those were at junior or secondary schools.

Fourteen years after Columbine, and eight miles down the road, Littleton suffered another shooting. Karl Pierson, 18, went to Arapahoe High School in December 2013 with two guns and shot 17-year-old Clare Davis in the head, before killing himself in the school's library.

One of the first police officers on the scene that day was Swat team member Quinn Cunningham. Still a serving officer, he now runs three-day active-shooter training sessions for armed teachers.

The "Faster" training courses - funded by Coloradans for Civil Liberties and the Independence Institute - include a day of "mindset development" - preparing teachers for the possibility that they will have to shoot dead one of their own students.

Mr Cunningham, 44, asks the teachers to close their eyes and imagine the student entering the classroom with a gun. In reality, a teacher might have just a split-second to assess the situation and respond. This is the most difficult and emotional part of the training, and reduces some of the participants to tears.

"But if we can have them win in their minds first, against that student, then when it comes to the actual incident they will prevail," Mr Cunningham said.

America's gun culture in 10 charts

Why are US mass shootings getting more deadly?

Five members of staff from Fleming High School in north-east Colorado volunteered last year for the training, which takes place in the summer break to keep students in the dark about who's involved. One teacher who took part, who asked to remain anonymous, said she decided to picture her favourite student during the preparation exercises, in an effort to harden herself to the worst possible eventuality.

"Teachers aren't really supposed to have favourites but you know, you have the ones that are close to you," she said. "But if that student made the poor decision to endanger everyone, I'm going to have to do something about it."

The school now has posters at every entrance stating that some of its teachers are armed. The students spent "about a week or two" trying to work out who was carrying guns, before giving up, the teacher said. Her wardrobe changed "quite a bit" to accommodate a handgun, she said. "It's just dressing to fit the gun."

The volunteers at Fleming High were subjected to background checks and a voice stress analysis, similar to a lie detector test, said school superintendent Steve McCracken. All five passed and now carry guns in the school.

"At the end of the day, no one in our school or community is in favour of having guns, but if a bad guy comes to the school we are now able to take care of it," he said.

"We do not have a local police department in our little town, and the sheriff's office could be at least 15 to 20 minutes away on a good day. The main reason for this is to close that gap."

Some staff vocally opposed the presence of guns and one teacher later left the school, but the general reaction from staff and the community was supportive, he said.

In a 2013 poll by the National Education Association, only 22% of teachers said they approved of the idea of arming staff, while 68% of teachers said they were opposed. In another survey the same year, 72% of teachers said they would not want to carry a gun even if the law allowed.

'Playing Rambo'

In Michigan, when the state senate passed legislation in November that extended concealed carry to high schools, churches, day care centres, and sporting events, former teacher-turned-Democratic state senator Jim Ananich was among a vocal minority who opposed the bill. He said he thought the "overwhelming majority" of his former colleagues would be against the idea.

"Trying to play Rambo just doesn't fit with the reality of what happens in a stressful situation," he said. "Untrained individuals are much more likely to shoot a bystander, a police officer, or a child."

The three days of training administered by Faster - and the legal minimum standard in Michigan of just eight hours for armed teachers - was not nearly enough, he said.

"Pursuing the NRA philosophy that you can put guns into the hands of teachers and untrained individuals, and expect them to make decisions that law enforcement or military are supposed to make, is backwards and it's dangerous."

Those fighting to keep guns out of schools say arming teachers is a bad solution to the wrong problem, particularly in states that lack laws around securing firearms in the home.

According to the Giffords Law Centre, 27 states and the District of Columbia have some sort of Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws, which dictate how securely guns should be stored in the home.

The CAP laws in Kentucky, where the shooter reportedly took a gun from his parents' closet, are among the weakest of all those states. Parents or guardians will only break the law if they knowingly provide a gun to a child convicted of a violent crime or likely to commit a crime.

"If we want to talk about preventing school shootings, we should be talking about stopping kids getting their hands on guns in the first place," said Mr Skaggs, chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "Those are the laws we should be looking at."

On the ground, groups like the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus are fighting state-by-state against the NRA, its state-level affiliates and other gun-advocacy groups to defeat pro-gun schools legislation.

"We - the collective gun violence prevention community - are defeating most of the bills right now, but the intensity on the other side is there," said Andy Pelosi, director of Keep Guns off Campus. "The NRA has its fingerprints all over this issue now, they want to push guns everywhere," he said. The NRA did not respond to a request for comment.

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Is it time for US teachers to carry guns?

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At least 17 people have died after a 19-year-old ex-pupil opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It's the deadliest school shooting since 2012, when 26 people were killed in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Two weeks ago, the BBC's Joel Gunter looked at whether arming US teachers could help prevent future bloodshed.

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"Protecting our schools is vitally important and something needs to be done now."
"Protection and better detection are the most realistic ways to prevent and catch serial killers."

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That could mean many things, from increased police presence at schools, to arming teachers, to keeping guns in locked boxes accessible to a few trained staff (as is happening in Ohio), to private security services. Each of these has benefits and drawbacks. Increased police in schools tends to lead to the " criminalization of typical teenage misbehavior." Arming teachers can lead to accidents, as happened last week in California. Private security guards can harm the educational experience by making schools seem more like prisons. Choices and trade-offs will have to be made.

In other contexts, increasing security around potential targets would not be a controversial move. If a serial night burglar or rapist were stalking your neighborhood, the reasonable first response would be to secure your home, perhaps through extra locks, a security system, or, if you're comfortable, a gun. Broader preventative measures would come next-such as changes to police policies, gun control, or trying to address the social roots of criminal activity-but those wouldn't see results for months or years to come. The immediate problem is protection.

But, for supporters of more restrictive gun control, increasing armed protection at schools sounds like the ravings of someone who'd rather live in the Wild West than in a civilized society. It's pouring gasoline on the fire.

I understand this sentiment. I don't like guns very much. I don't own guns. I understand those who would like to live in a gun-free world, but in America that's a fantasy.

Let's return to the real world, where kids are walking into schools with guns, and there are currently between 300-400 million out there for them to choose from.

Yes, it can be argued that gun-control laws in other countries helped stop mass shootings, and perhaps they did, but America is different. Even if we stopped all gun sales tomorrow and repealed the Second Amendment, school shooters are unlikely to be deterred. They are particularly determined killers, usually planning their crimes months in advance, which includes stockpiling weapons and magazines, building bombs, and other disturbing scheming. "Assault weapons" may seem ominous, but school shooters don't commit their crimes because they have assault weapons, they seek out assault weapons once they decide to commit their crimes. And if there weren't any "assault weapons," there are more than enough other kinds of guns out there for them to commit their atrocities.

School shooters should be seen more like serial killers than normal criminals. Serial killers aren't dissuaded by waiting periods, background checks, or other laws that could feasibly discourage less-motivated criminals. If a serial killer was terrorizing America with a specific brand of chef's knife, it would be ludicrous to ban that brand of chef's knife, especially if there were millions already in circulation.

Protection and better detection are the most realistic ways to prevent and catch serial killers and they're also the most realistic ways to prevent mass shootings. Perhaps, through concerted political action and protests, Americans will slowly change their minds about guns and one day more stringent gun control will be possible. That day, however, is not today.

Today is the day to protect our schools.

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Armed Protection in Schools Is an Obvious First Step to Preventing School Shootings

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In other contexts, increasing security around potential targets would not be a controversial move.

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"Arming teachers with guns is not the answer. I want you to arm with me for what I need to provide a great education for all students."

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Florida shooting: Teachers want to be armed, but not with guns

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US teachers have been posting on Instagram what they would prefer to be armed with.

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"The measure drastically reduces the amount of training teachers and other staff are required to undergo before they can possess a firearm on school grounds. Instead of 700 hours of training, teachers will be able to finish in less than 24 hours."
"Opened the door to teachers carrying guns in schools."

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Every year, all kinds of bad ideas are introduced in state legislatures nationwide. Some of the most outlandish generate national attention, but they're routinely ignored or defeated before becoming law. There's generally little point in paying attention to such bills.

For example, when I saw some local reporting out of Ohio recently about a proposal to make it easier for teachers to carry guns in public schools, it seemed like a bizarre plan that stood little chance of success.

Yesterday, as NBC News reported, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine told reporters that he'd signed the bill into law.

The measure drastically reduces the amount of training teachers and other staff are required to undergo before they can possess a firearm on school grounds. Instead of 700 hours of training, teachers will be able to finish in less than 24 hours.

Some of the headlines and tweets about this have suggested that Ohio has now opened the door to teachers carrying guns in schools, but that's not quite right: The Buckeye State already allowed teachers to be armed. That was the status quo before this new policy.

What's different is that the previous policy required educators to get school-board permission and complete 700 hours of training. Under the new policy approved by Ohio Republicans, teachers won't have to bother with nearly that much preparation and instruction: The training requirements have been slashed by about 97 percent.

NBC News' report added, "The measure was opposed by teachers' unions, the state's Fraternal Order of Police and gun safety groups."

The GOP governor, who's up for re-election this year, signed it anyway.

It was nearly three years ago when a gunman in Ohio killed nine people and wounded 17 others near the entrance of a bar in Dayton. Soon after, DeWine faced a crowd of constituents who'd gathered for a local vigil, but his remarks were soon drowned out: The assembled Ohioans chanted, "Do something" with such volume and intensity that the Republican was effectively shouted down by the crowd.

Yesterday, a reporter reminded the governor of what he heard in Dayton and asked, "Do you feel that what you're doing today is exactly what those people intended?"

DeWine replied, "I don't know."

Do you get the feeling that maybe the governor did know and just didn't want to say?

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Ohio makes it easier for teachers to carry guns in public schools

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Every year, all kinds of bad ideas are introduced in state legislatures nationwide. Some of the most outlandish generate national attention, but they're routinely ignored or defeated before becoming law. There's generally little point in paying attention to such bills.

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"We just feel helpless,” she said. “It’s not enough.”
“This is a very reactive way to think about gun violence prevention.”

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Trained, Armed and Ready. To Teach Kindergarten. (Published 2022)

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More school employees are carrying guns to defend against school shootings. In Ohio, a contentious new law requires no more than 24 hours of training.

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These schools say arming teachers ‘can be done right’

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“students in the Callisburg Independent School District say they feel safer knowing their teachers can protect them if the unthinkable happens.”
"We'll do whatever's necessary to protect our kids and staff,"

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These schools say arming teachers ‘can be done right’

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Teachers carrying guns may be a “terrible” or even a “ridiculous” idea to critics, but some school administrators are making the case for arming their staff.