Armed Teachers Make Schools Safer

With a recent rash of shootings being perpetrated at schools across the country, the safety of our students has been at the forefront of many of our minds as of late.

In two particular instances, it was unarmed students who took action and helped stop terrible evil-doers in their tracks.

At UNC Charlotte on April 30, Riley Howell rushed toward the perpetrator, knocking him off his feet and ultimately saving many lives.

According to Fox 6, "When a gunman walked into his classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte campus, Riley Howell rushed toward him, police and Howell's family said. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Kerr Putney said Howell ran at the gunman and knocked him off his feet --- something that eventually helped police arrest the suspect. 'He's an athletically built young man and he took the fight to the assailant,' Putney said. 'Unfortunately, he had to give his life to do so, but he saved lives doing so.'"

At STEM School Highlands Ranch on May 7, Kendrick Castillo rushed the shooter, giving his fellow classmates time to escape. Castillo had previously told his father he would act if ever confronted by an active shooter --- and that's exactly what he did.

According to USA Today, "An emotional John Castillo lauded his kind-hearted son as a hero. 'I want people to know about him,' he told ABC News. He also told NBC that he talked with Kendrick about what to do in a school shooting, advising him 'you don't have to be the hero.' But his son, who wanted to study electrical engineering in college, insisted he would act. 'You raised me this way. You raised me to be a good person. That's what I'm doing,' Castillo recalled."

The reason I bring up these two brave young men who sacrificed their own lives is because their actions show what can happen when people choose to fight back.

Imagine how many of these tragedies could be stopped --- or prevented altogether --- if the perpetrators knew people were going to put up a fight!

New research from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) sheds light on just that: the promising effect of teachers carrying guns.

Dr. John R. Lott, Jr. of the CPRC recently appeared on The Blaze to talk about his latest report, "Schools That Allow Teachers to Carry Guns Are Extremely Safe: Data on the Rate of Shootings and Accidents in Schools That Allow Teachers to Carry."

According to Lott, more than 1,000 school districts across the country have already moved to arm teachers.

"You just don't see shootings occurring in schools that have teachers carrying," he said.

Lott's latest research attempts to answer two important questions: "Does letting teachers carry create dangers?" And "might they deter attackers?"

Despite claims from Michael Bloomberg and others that arming teachers is "dangerous" for the students, Lott says "there's not one case where a student [has] gotten hold of a teacher's gun and done something wrong with it. There's not one case of a teacher accidentally shooting somebody."

And what about deterrence?

"Rather than having a sign in front of a school that says, 'This school is a gun-free zone,' there's a sign that says, 'Selective teachers at this school are armed and will use their guns to defend the students and themselves,'" Lott notes. "Does that deter people? The fact that you don't see one single attack at any of these schools during anything near school hours tells you that at least there's some evidence that they deter."

In response to Lott's claim of no shooting events or injuries in the districts that have already made the decision to arm teachers, Eric Bolling of Blaze TV said, "That's a staggering statistic. Love guns, hate guns ... when you have that kind of scorecard..."

Lott's report looks at several other interesting statistics, including feedback from law enforcement:

"Perhaps because police understand the difficulty of their jobs, they are strongly in favor of abolishing gun-free school zones. Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, PoliceOne, a 450,000-member private organization of police (380,000 active, full-time and 70,000 retired officers), surveyed its members and found that 77 percent supported arming teachers and/or school staff. Eighty-six percent of the officers believed that casualties in mass public shootings would have been reduced or altogether prevented if legally armed citizens had been able to carry guns."

I highly encourage you to read the full report here. This is really promising stuff.

Take care and stay safe,

Tim Schmidt
Publisher - Concealed Carry Report
USCCA Founder