CINCINNATI, OHIO — Ohio teachers and administrators are part of a novel program to train and equip school faculty to handle the realities of a school shooting. At present, there is no law requiring them to be listed for the public or even law enforcement agencies. This has gotten a few parents riled up as they want to know who’s carrying guns around their kids. Thankfully, Ohio hasn’t done anything about it.
First responders and law enforcement arriving to the scene of a recent school shooting are all too familiar with the confusion and panic those types of events create. It’s hard to distinguish friend from foe or even assess the situation. For teachers in over 40 counties that are pursuing Ohio’s process for being allowed to carry concealed on school property, they also have an obstacle to face when law enforcement and first responders are arriving. This does create a bit of a hurdle. However, let’s keep in mind that Ohio teachers and administrators have to go through extensive state-mandated training before they’re allowed to carry concealed.
In a recent article published by WCPO Cincinnati, a security consultant gives his opinion on the matter.
“I just can’t imagine local law enforcement responding to a threat in a school, walking into a building and not knowing if the person standing in the hallway with a gun is a first grade teacher or an angry gunman,” said Ken Trump, a national school security consultant based out of Cleveland.
This is a potential problem no matter if a list of concealed carriers is publicly available or not. Police responding to a critical emergency aren’t going to have placards posted up in front of them to strictly identify which of any number of authorized teachers carrying concealed is actively present and engaged with the attackers.
That’s just a strict limitation of the human brain and its ability to process stress and danger in an active shooter scenario.
As such, it’s incumbent upon both police arriving to the scene and teachers responding to an active school shooting to quickly and efficiently identify themselves to one another. There is plenty of room for error.
On the same token, even if it takes five minutes for law enforcement to respond to the scene of a school shooting, having teachers on hand to respond with their own concealed carry handguns will prove to be the immediate response necessary.
Having those people placed on a publicly available list is a recipe for disaster. There are people in this world which will prey upon any publicly available information to degrade or disgrace the sacrifice these faculty members are willing to make to save lives. It’s the same reason why we don’t publish lists of active concealed carriers in the community and it’s just one more reason not to do it in this case.
Thankfully, the efforts of a select few to make that information common knowledge has been stopped in both the Ohio House and Senate. And we, as responsible concealed carriers, appreciate that. As the world gets exceedingly more unpredictable, I, for one, appreciate that there are still people in this world capable, ready, and trained to protect children from those who would prey upon them.