Response to School Violence: A Teacher’s Approach

Anyone who has turned on the TV, flipped on the radio, or thumbed through a newspaper lately knows firsthand that law enforcement authorities and education officials across the United States have been facing rising school violence for at least the past decade. Recent events like the Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania and the Virginia Tech massacre have heightened awareness of this growing national issue.

Defensive training for teachers is a first line of defense that includes quickly disarming a perpetrator with a gun, particularly when the attacker’s focus is lost or he becomes distracted. However, the attempted disarming of any criminal can be a dangerous move and is not always successful.

Arming teachers with alternative, non-lethal means of self-defense is a far better solution to the problem. Within the educational community, there is a segment of professionals who would never choose to own or carry a firearm. Providing these folks with the sophisticated training needed, particularly placing focus on attack situations like to occur in a school would only take an afternoon with minimal costs incurred.

While it is a fact that non-lethal self-defense products may not work in all situations (for example, some pepper spray products are not effective on those people how regularly partake of spicy foods), they can and do save lives. A pepper sprayed assailant who is in extreme pain is more likely to have his plan of attack derailed, thereby allowing students to escape to safety and providing the teacher with increased odds of recovering the firearm before anyone is harmed.

There is no downside, except for the campus criminal, if teachers are trained and carry concealed self-defense tools such as pepper spray or stun guns. Everyone –teachers and students—would be much safer.