This article is the last of my wargaming scenarios concerning an active shooter (AS) situation in a school. This will also be, undoubtedly, the most emotional of the three options—it involves the arming of teachers within the schools.
COA #3: Armed Teachers in the School
Amongst volunteers, schools would select five teachers to arm and train to engage an active shooter within the school. Volunteers would be a mandatory requirement—you cannot force an individual to be responsible for handling a weapon. I determined this number to ensure the likelihood that there would always be multiple people within the school to engage an AS. At the same time, there aren’t too many—which could potentially cause a nightmare of numerous people shooting at once, which could exponentially increase the odds of students being shot. As teachers are already being paid by the system, I included a $150/month stipend for a total of $1350 per year (nine school months) per teacher. There would be no additional administrative costs unless the teachers aren’t already in the system.
Vital in this scenario is the safety of both students and teachers. It’s important to consider the danger associated with the addition of guns in schools. To implement this plan, schools would add biometric safes to several classrooms at a cost of roughly $125 per safe. I also factored three safes for every armed teacher, so as to add to the uncertainty of which teachers were armed. The additional safes would be placed randomly throughout the school. I allotted $400 per teacher for weapon purchases. Storage of the weapon would be an absolute—teachers would be prohibited from accessing the safe any time students are present within the building. This would ensure that students would never have access to the weapons, even if a teacher needed to physically restrain a student. Additionally, each safe would contain an article of identification known only to law enforcement (LE) and the armed teachers. This would act as a uniform for the teachers so that when LE arrived on the scene, they could quickly identify friendly forces. This could be something as simple as a distinctive reflector belt worn across the body. As always, training would be paramount. Local LE would absorb the training cost, as they are already set up for this with their own agencies.
Teachers would be given fourteen days of annual training, seven in the summer at a cost of $100 daily (average training pay for a teacher during the summer) and seven days throughout the year which we will count as professional education training—this is already factored into school budgets (averaging out to an additional cost of $50 per day overall). I also included $500 annually for ammunition. This comes out to an average cost of $16.6k per school or $37.28 per student. I have heard the argument given that teachers do not want to be armed and would not carry even if given the option. From my own experience both as a high school JROTC instructor, and as a spouse of a teacher, I understand this viewpoint. By and large, schools are bastions of liberal beliefs where conservative ideals are quickly put on trial. However, this simply means that more conservative teachers keep their political views under wraps while at school.
In my own discussions with teachers, both before and after the Parkland shooting, I have found many unheard voices in support of having the ability to defend themselves against an armed and psychopathic threat. If a person has a gun and is indiscriminately killing, you can either run, hide, or take an active role to protect yourself and the other people under your care. While the mantra of not wanting to have to fight might sound good, the reality is that your only two options may simply come down to fight or die. Final note, school administrators would need to ensure armed teachers were dispersed throughout the school and ensure that at least two of the five teachers were always in their classrooms—easy access to their weapons during school hours is paramount.
War Gaming: Most Dangerous COA
In researching this scenario, I found it difficult to determine the most dangerous COA for the AS. All of the literature I could find spoke about the danger to teachers if they were armed—not the AS. It would appear potential problems are accidental discharges, using weapons to attack students not involved in an AS scenario, and teachers having psychotic breakdowns with access to a weapon. As stated above, however, locking the weapons in a safe would ensure students wouldn’t have access and accidental discharges would not be possible. There were also examples given of teachers bringing guns into schools already and shooting them accidentally or at students/teachers. This is, in my estimation, no different from having an AS in the school and has nothing to do with those individuals following the laws. Teachers already have scissors and other sharp objects in their rooms which can be weaponized, yet we see no outbreak of teachers stabbing students. In this case, it appears that the most dangerous course of action can be mitigated by safety protocols and not giving weapons to teachers who are suffering from a psychosis of some kind. Minus the factors already judged below (fratricide), I found the rest of the arguments to be thinly veiled attacks on the Second Amendment.
Wargaming: Most Likely COA
Action – AS would engage students in small arms fire. Students would respond by running away in multiple directions.
Reaction – Teachers who are armed would immediately retrieve their weapons and item to identify themselves to LE. They would then move to the locations where the shooter is. Teachers would engage the shooter from multiple angles, thus decreasing the odds that he could survive. It is possible that the teachers would also fail to react and instead run/hide. It would be essential to properly pick suitable personnel for this job and enact realistic training to help counter this possibility.
Counter Action – There are only two likely outcomes from this action. Assuming that multiple teachers arrive on the scene to engage the shooter, the likelihood of the shooter out-gunning them is remote. Therefore, the shooter will either be shot and incapacitated with no loss of student life due to fratricide, or students will end up being shot by the teachers. This is, unfortunately, a very real possibility due to the chaos of the situation.
Evaluation/Ratings:
Fiscal cost: (2) At approximately $37 per student throughout the US, this is a cost-effective option.
Training requirements: (5) This COA is clearly training intensive as some of these teachers will have very little experience in marksmanship. While many schools will have military veterans within their halls, shooting is a perishable skill—retraining would be a requirement no matter what.
Cost of life by AS: (2) This COA allows for an extremely fast response with the ability to assault the AS from multiple angles. Of course, this relies on the ability for the teachers to be willing to put themselves in harm’s way to engage. This is the reason for having multiple teachers armed.
Fratricide: (5) This COA has a very high threat of students being shot by teachers attempting to kill the AS. While training can help to reduce this risk, the fact that there will be multiple shooters from multiple angles keeps this risk at the highest level.
Ability to neutralize the threat: (5) By arming multiple teachers and training them, the odds of a teacher being able to stop the AS is very high.
The speed of neutralizing the threat: (4) Since the teachers will be spread throughout the school, the speed to which they can engage the AS is increased. The only detriment to this is that the teachers will need to retrieve their weapons and identifiable apparel to allow LE to spot and identify them quickly as friendly forces.
Stay tuned for my final analysis (Part 4) concerning which COA is most beneficial when wargaming scenarios involving an active shooter (AS) situation in a school.
