Police in Utah are training teachers on how to use guns to handle potential school shootings.
“If teachers are carrying guns, well, I want them to know how to use a gun,” Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith told NBC on Monday. “Everybody hopes it never happens. But at the end of the day, hope is a terrible strategy for success.”
The sheriff is holding the training after a recent lockdown at a local school where teachers without training left their guns in unsecured places. Utah allows teachers to carry weapons in school with the requirement that they conceal them and keep them secure.
The focus on training has come after a school shooting last week in Santa Clarita, California, that left two people dead and several others injured. The Utah County Sheriff’s Teachers Academy now has a waitlist of teachers, custodians, librarians, and administrators for its next six-week course.
The sheriff’s department teaches not only shooting drills but deescalation tactics and first aid for gunshot wounds. Smith said he thinks the training will make sure the teachers have the tools necessary to defend students.
President Trump has voiced support for arming teachers nationally in the past. “A gun-free zone is, ‘Let’s go in, and lets attack because bullets aren’t coming back at us,'” Trump said. He added that arming teachers would mean “you’d have a lot of people who would be armed, who would be ready.”
