One response to school shootings in America: arm the teachers - The Economist   

Nestled among golden-coloured earth and desert scrub, the Thistle Gun Range, an hour’s drive south of Salt Lake City, gives off “wild-west” vibes. Add the wind softly blowing through thigh-high weeds, the sound of gunshots ringing through the canyon and the sight of six-foot-tall deputies from the Utah County Sheriff’s department wearing cowboy hats, and your correspondent felt immersed in a western. Only this was no rodeo. It was a live range day for teachers and other school staff learning how to shoot.

Since 2019 Sheriff Mike Smith of Utah County and his colleagues have taught teachers how to defend themselves against active shooters, and that includes learning how to safely carry and use a concealed weapon inside schools. In the state of Utah, school staff can carry a concealed weapon if they have a permit, but this licensing process is not enough, says Sheriff Smith. “You don’t actually have to go shoot a gun and show that you can proficiently hit a target in a classroom setting.” Teachers are not trained how to properly respond to an active shooter and carry a weapon in a school. His class aims to bridge this gap.

Sheriff Smith realised he had a problem several years ago when he and more than 200 officers responded to an active-shooter situation at a school. It was a hoax, but he was still disturbed by what he saw. Because of Utah’s law on carrying concealed weapons in school buildings, some of the teachers that day were armed. Sheriff Smith says that officers found weapons stored in desk drawers and inside purses where pupils could easily find them. “They didn’t have any training, any policies, any procedure in place to govern how they use that weapon, which I think is a recipe for disaster,” says Sheriff Smith. So when he became sheriff of Utah County a few years after the hoax, he created the teachers’ academy.

Continued here