Missouri training teachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom

Published March 30, 2018

Reading, writing and target practice?

Some Missouri school districts have decided the best way to thwart a massacre like the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 is to train teachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom.

For a $17,500 fee, districts get 40 hours of training on how to use a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol for two staffers at a hilltop range in the Ozarks town of West Plains, the Kansas City Star reported. Instructors are current law enforcement officers with Shield Solutions.

The company’s founder, Greg Martin, told the Star only school district administrators and local law enforcement will know the identity of the teachers trained to pack heat.

“Like air marshals on planes,” Martin told the newspaper. “How many hijackings have we had since 9/11?”

Ten Missouri school districts have signed up for Shield Solutions training; three more have signed contracts.

Warsaw School District administrators said they were prompted to act after Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 first-graders and 6 educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

But not everyone thinks it’s a good idea to arm teachers.

“We would be asking school officials, trained as educators, to make a quick transition from teacher to SWAT member, arrive on the scene, assess the situation, overcome the severe nervousness that naturally accompanies a deadly force incident and take immediate action before blood is shed,” G.A. Buie, a Kansas high school principal and the president-elect of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, told the Star.

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https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/missouri-training-teachers-to-carry-concealed-weapons-in-the-classroom