By TONY MATTIVI
Candidate for Kansas Attorney General
I support the idea of allowing qualified and trained volunteer teachers the option of having safe, secure, and immediate access to a firearm in the classroom and at school. Sharon Hartin Iorio, dean emerita at the Wichita State University College of Education recently wrote a piece noting my position and arguing it won’t improve school safety. Her argument is flatly incorrect.
Too many children have died in school shootings. I agree with Dean Iorio that our society needs to act now. I also believe our response should be comprehensive. Here’s what I suggest.
First, we should protect schools by making them harder targets. The Pulse Nightclub shooter scouted two other targets before entering the Pulse Nightclub. When the shooter saw a visible police presence at each of the other nightclubs, he moved on. When he came to Pulse, he saw no police outside. He entered the nightclub to see if any officers were present inside. When he saw none, he returned to his vehicle, armed himself, re-entered the nightclub, and began his killing spree. Schools are attacked because they are soft targets. We must change that.
When my kids were in school, those schools were secured during the day. All exterior doors were locked and access was limited. If I needed to drop off their lunch or bring the homework they forgot (which happened more times than I wanted!), I had to ring the bell and be buzzed in. Once inside, the first person I typically saw was the school resource officer. This should be the case in every school.
But that’s not enough. Careful examination of mass shootings has shown a consistent theme: the longer the wait for an armed person to confront the shooter, the more people die. On average, an attacker shoots one victim every ten seconds. That means six victims every minute. There are two enemies in a mass shooting: the shooter and the clock. What saves lives in a mass shooting is to neutralize the threat. The only way to do that is to take the shooter down as quickly as possible.
In 2019, a mentally ill 43-year-old man walked into a church in Texas, pulled a pistol-gripped shotgun from under his coat, and began shooting. He immediately killed two of the 240 worshipers present. Fortunately, that church had a security team consisting of armed parishioners. Less than six seconds after the first shot, one of those armed parishioners killed the attacker before anyone in the church even had the opportunity to call 911. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And the longer it takes for a good guy with a gun to get there, the more people die. It’s that simple.
Dean Iorio argues that “not all school personnel will be willing or able to carry firearms.” I don’t advocate that all school personnel carry firearms. Rather, I believe that any school personnel who are willing, able, and trained should be allowed safe, secure, and immediate access to a firearm at school if they wish. Some teachers are retired law enforcement officers or combat veterans. Right now, if one of those highly qualified individuals wished to have access to a firearm to protect their students, most school districts would prohibit it. This is a travesty, and it makes our kids less safe.
She also argues that a person with a handgun is “no match for an active shooter with military-grade firepower.” Example after example has disproven this argument. From Texas to Wisconsin, Oregon to South Carolina, good guys with handguns have been able to stop attackers with rifles or shotguns. One particular hero with a handgun in Garland, Texas was able to stop two attackers armed with rifles.
School shootings are a problem that has existed for far too long and has only gotten worse. I don’t advocate for arming teachers as a substitute for a comprehensive whole-of-society approach to keeping our kids safe. But allowing qualified and trained volunteer teachers to have safe, secure, and immediate access to a firearm should be part of a comprehensive approach to protecting our kids.
Dean Iorio concedes that a mix of armed teachers, school-based security personnel, and licensed peace officers in all schools could make schools safer. I agree with her. But then she discounts this approach because she says it “wouldn’t make schools fully safe.”We can all agree that we should be trying to make our schools fully safe. But until they are, we should be doing anything we can to make them more safe. Allowing qualified and trained volunteer teachers safe, secure, and immediate access to a weapon in their classroom will make our kids safer. There is absolutely no valid reason that school officials like Dean Iorio should be blocking these common-sense efforts to protect our students.