Gannett News Service - Group offers free firearm training for Ohio teachers
A few Ohio teachers will be given free gun training, and at least one firearm instructor said arming select educators could work to deter violence if done by the right people with the right training.
The Buckeye Firearms Association on Thursday announced a pilot program to give firearms training to two dozen educators for free. The announcement came at a town hall sponsored by the state gun lobby at which participants debated gun control in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
"Teachers and school board members have been asking us for years about training to prepare for an incident like Sandy Hook," Ken Hanson, BFA's legal chairman, said in a statement. "Based on the response to this pilot program, we will roll out classes to other training facilities."
The initial Armed Teacher Pilot Program will offer 24 teachers a three-day training class at the Tactical Defense Institute in West Union. All expenses, including tuition, ammunition and lodging, will be paid by the foundation and outside donations. It is expected to cost about $1,000 per teacher.
Having an armed staffer at school makes sense to Sgt. Scott Wagner, a Central Ohio police officer, firearms instructor and former SWAT team leader and sniper. Having someone trained to handle a shooter could prevent or reduce a tragedy, especially because assailants typically aren't expecting any resistance.
"They don't tend to hold up well when someone points a gun back at them," he said. "They can inflict a lot of pain on other people, but they can’t take it themselves."
Wagner said numerous precautions would have to be taken before giving any educator a weapon at school, however. He suggested starting with the pool of employees who have a concealed carry permit because they already have gone through some training. Volunteers from that pool then would have to undergo intensive interviews with police to ensure they have the proper mental makeup to handle a weapon in a crisis.
Finally, the person would need to undergo intensive firearms training and be recertified annually.
For such a program to work, Wagner said which educators are carrying a weapon must be kept a secret. To make them public would make them targets, he said. He said he thinks ordinary educators interested in the subject could make a difference if given the tools.
"It has to be someone who is competent and capable and volunteers to do this," Wagner said. "It takes the right the person and the right training."
However, the legality of even allowing teachers to be armed is in question. Hollie Reedy, chief legal counsel for the Ohio School Boards Association, said doing so would require a change in state law.
Although Ohio law has a couple of sections that relate to who is allowed to bring weapons within school buildings, Reedy cited ORC 109.78, which states no public or private educational institution may employ an individual as a special police officer, security guard or other position in which they are armed on duty, unless they have a certificate proving they have completed basic peace officer training or have 20 years of active duty experience as a police officer.
"Those are the only people right now that can be armed while on duty at a school," she said.
Peace officer training is 1,500 hours, Reedy said.
"It's not like your weekend personal security classes," she said.
Reedy said the law goes back at least to 2000, and probably as far back as the 1970s in some form, since a court case exists involving a school security guard in Columbus who accidentally shot a student after using a loaded gun to prod the teenager in the back and the gun fired.
"One of the issues was that he did not have the 1,500 hours of basic peace officer training," she said.
A separate section, ORC 2923.122, allows school boards to give written authorization to a person to possess a weapon in a school.
Reedy said the OSBA will be "at the table" in discussion of how schools deal with security issues in the wake of the Connecticut shooting. The association has taken no position pro or con, on changes in the law to allow teachers to be armed on school premises. However, it would work to ensure that laws are written flexibly so school boards retain local control for policies that fit their communities, she said.
Hanson said the long-term goal of his organization's training program is to develop a standard course for all teachers and school officials. The first class is to be announced in early January. The group promised to keep identities of the participants confidential.
