Ohio teachers take course in packing heat, first of its kind for U.S. educators

A new program in Ohio is showing teachers how to kill a potential school shooter. The Armed Teacher Training Program was created in response to the killings in Newtown, Conn. The program, which is the only one of its kind in the country, began Monday with 24 participants, reports Joshua Jamerson of The Columbus Dispatch. (Dispatch photo by Brooke Lavalley)

"Arming teachers is the best way to stop more mass murders, and gun control can’t help," Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearm Association, told Jamerson. "Gun control is purely political and has no place in this conversation."

"Deanna, an elementary-school teacher from central Ohio, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she doesn’t know if she would have taken the training course had the Newtown massacre not occurred," Jamerson writes, quoting her: "Tragedy wakes you up."

As part of the program, "Participants learn tactical maneuvers so that they might be able to take down a school gunman," Jamerson writes. "The program began with classroom sessions and ended with active killer shooting," which involved role playing in school-type situations, where "good guys use model Airsoft guns to shoot plastic pellets at other participants who are playing the bad guys." All participants have already had concealed-weapons training. (Read more)