Armed teachers and psychological deterrents on a daily basis (Oct. 23)

by J. Pharoah Doss, For New Pittsburgh Courier

After the 2018 Parkland school shooting the state of Florida created a safety initiative called The Guardian Program. Guardians are armed personnel who aid in the “prevention or abatement of active assailant incidents on school premises.” Initially, guardians were non-instructional employees or hired help—school resource officers. Classroom instructors were ineligible to participate in the program, but there’s been a change. A new state law provides schools with the option to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons. School districts have to vote in favor of arming teachers, then teachers have to volunteer to be guardians.

The Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence is against arming teachers. Their spokesperson stated they’re worried about the accuracy of teachers being able to shoot, or to be able to shoot at all in that type of situation. Teachers are not trained like law enforcement. According to the advocacy group Every Town for Gun Safety, law enforcement receives an average of 840 hours of basic training, including 168 hours on weapons, self-defense, and the use of force. But participants in Florida’s Guardian program will have to pass a psychological exam, clear drug screening, and complete a minimum of 144 hours of training. (144 hours vs. 168 hours is not as dramatic of a difference the advocacy group makes it out to be.)

Seven Florida County school districts have decided to arm teachers, but the 60 other school districts have decided against it. The point of contention, for the non-participating counties, was the state will not keep track of how many districts or teachers are taking part in the program. That sounds like a bureaucratic mess, but Florida State Senator Oscar Braynon was more articulate. He said, “For you to implement a program that does more harm than it does good —and we don’t even know who does it—is absolutely asinine and it’s counterproductive to what the agency for school safety is supposed to be doing. This is the dumb backwards stuff that we do here.”

Let’s explore another aspect of this backwardness.

In Florida unarmed and armed security officers are required to be licensed by the state before they can work in the field. Applicants for an unarmed position are required to complete the Unarmed Security D Course, which consists of 40 classroom hours. Armed applicants must already possess an Unarmed Security D license and complete the Armed Security G Course, which consists of 28 classroom and firearm training hours.

I lived in Florida for a decade and took the Armed Security G Course. The instructor was a retired policeman who said he never pulled his gun in 30 years. The first thing he explained was that the gun on the side of a security officer’s waist was a part of the officer’s uniform. It was a psychological deterrent. But if an assailant isn’t deterred don’t be a hero, security companies pay for deterrence not heroism. (Then he added, you can get into a lot of trouble for actually using your weapon.) So, in Florida, armed security officers, who are in the safety business, receive 68 hours of training and act as psychological deterrents for assailants on a daily basis, but volunteers in the teaching profession who pass a psychological exam will be given 144 hours of training to take out active shooters if necessary.

Since the teachers are volunteering for heroism it might not be backwards, but armed security will think it’s asinine.

(J. Pharoah Doss is a contributor to the New Pittsburgh Courier.)

 

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