2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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Here we are, an in depth look at some teachers going through the FASTER program in Ohio, learning how to carry and use guns to save the lives of their students and staff at the schools where they are employed...
When You Give a Teacher a Gun
We meet on the first day of FASTER Saves Lives, a three-day āactive killerā response course in rural Adams County, Ohio, where school staff members learn how to carry a gun on campus and, should it one day become necessary, how to shoot to kill. By the end of this year, its sixth, around 2,000 people from 15 statesāincluding me, Pam, and about two dozen other men and women enrolled in this sessionāwill have completed the training, which includes the above exercise, carried out in a controlled setting with actors and Airsoft pistols that fire plastic pellets
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s of three months ago, Pam had never shot a handgun in her life. The night before attending an eight-hour gun-safety seminarāa prerequisite for obtaining her $67 concealed-carry permitāa cousin had taken her out on his property and let her squeeze off a few practice rounds, just so she could see which make and model fit her hands best. Over breakfast, we overhear a pair of veteran shooters chatter away about the intricacies of the gauntlet that awaits us, and Pam is all nerves. āI feel like Iām in over my head,ā she says.
Sheās been a teacher for 14 years; once, I return to my seat to find āPam was here!ā scrawled on the front of my notebook. Whenever she gets a fleeting bar of cell service, she calls or texts her husband and three children to check in. He knows what she is doing this week, but the kids have no idea. She confesses it feels like sheās āliving a secret life.ā
When she started her career, Pamās salary was $23,000. (āIf I ever see $55,000, Iāll be 105 years old,ā she says, laughing.) The district is covering her hotel and ammunition for training, but she paid for her new $500 Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun and for all her gearāmagazines, magazine pouches, a holster, safety equipment, and that concealed-carry permitāout of her own pocket.
The course is offered by an Ohio nonprofit called the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, which uses donations to fund scholarships for most attendees. But since Parkland, overwhelming demand has prevented the Foundation from being able to cover everyone. Before the shooting, two dozen openings remained for all of summer 2018; in the months that followed, organizers sometimes fielded that number of applications in a single day. Eventually, they were able to accept several hundred of them in about a dozen overflow classes. Even so, today about 2,000 people are still sitting on a waitlist.
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No one forced Pam to be here. But her own kids attend the same school at which she works, and while she believes that the districtās other elementary campus has around two armed employees, hers has just oneāan administrator who is nearing retirement. The thought of them going unprotected for any period of time gnawed at her, and so when the superintendent asked for more volunteers during a staff meeting, she decided to raise her hand.
Pam still wonders if he thought she was kidding. āBut then he listed all the things I needed to do: get a concealed-carry permit, do this class, get all this stuff,ā she remembers. āI was like, Oh, my gosh, I donāt even have a gun. I have to go buy a gun now. Where do I buy a gun? What have I done?ā
When You Give a Teacher a Gun
We meet on the first day of FASTER Saves Lives, a three-day āactive killerā response course in rural Adams County, Ohio, where school staff members learn how to carry a gun on campus and, should it one day become necessary, how to shoot to kill. By the end of this year, its sixth, around 2,000 people from 15 statesāincluding me, Pam, and about two dozen other men and women enrolled in this sessionāwill have completed the training, which includes the above exercise, carried out in a controlled setting with actors and Airsoft pistols that fire plastic pellets
-------------------
s of three months ago, Pam had never shot a handgun in her life. The night before attending an eight-hour gun-safety seminarāa prerequisite for obtaining her $67 concealed-carry permitāa cousin had taken her out on his property and let her squeeze off a few practice rounds, just so she could see which make and model fit her hands best. Over breakfast, we overhear a pair of veteran shooters chatter away about the intricacies of the gauntlet that awaits us, and Pam is all nerves. āI feel like Iām in over my head,ā she says.
Sheās been a teacher for 14 years; once, I return to my seat to find āPam was here!ā scrawled on the front of my notebook. Whenever she gets a fleeting bar of cell service, she calls or texts her husband and three children to check in. He knows what she is doing this week, but the kids have no idea. She confesses it feels like sheās āliving a secret life.ā
When she started her career, Pamās salary was $23,000. (āIf I ever see $55,000, Iāll be 105 years old,ā she says, laughing.) The district is covering her hotel and ammunition for training, but she paid for her new $500 Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun and for all her gearāmagazines, magazine pouches, a holster, safety equipment, and that concealed-carry permitāout of her own pocket.
The course is offered by an Ohio nonprofit called the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, which uses donations to fund scholarships for most attendees. But since Parkland, overwhelming demand has prevented the Foundation from being able to cover everyone. Before the shooting, two dozen openings remained for all of summer 2018; in the months that followed, organizers sometimes fielded that number of applications in a single day. Eventually, they were able to accept several hundred of them in about a dozen overflow classes. Even so, today about 2,000 people are still sitting on a waitlist.
---------
No one forced Pam to be here. But her own kids attend the same school at which she works, and while she believes that the districtās other elementary campus has around two armed employees, hers has just oneāan administrator who is nearing retirement. The thought of them going unprotected for any period of time gnawed at her, and so when the superintendent asked for more volunteers during a staff meeting, she decided to raise her hand.
Pam still wonders if he thought she was kidding. āBut then he listed all the things I needed to do: get a concealed-carry permit, do this class, get all this stuff,ā she remembers. āI was like, Oh, my gosh, I donāt even have a gun. I have to go buy a gun now. Where do I buy a gun? What have I done?ā