Armed Teachers: The Solution to School Shootings?

Statistics.

1. the relative possibility that an event will occur, as expressed by the ratio of the number of actual occurrences to the total number of possible occurrences.

2. the relative frequency with which an event occurs or is likely to occur.  

Almost any skill you use is effective due to training. Training and repetition is the backbone of any skill you might need to use at a moments notice.

It is very rare that a person under duress, with infrequent or no training can be as effective as someone that has training on a semi regular basis. Let alone someone who’s livelihood and life depends on the training.

There is a reason that coaches train athletes a certain way.

Employers train employees a certain way.

Drill Sergeants train military recruits a certain way.

The Police Academy trains its LEO’s a certain way.

Over time, these “trainers” have discovered that they can expect a probable result after the trainee receives their training. There are going to be some that do better and probably an equal number that do worse than average. The 65-75% in the middle will be close to one another with the same training from the same instructor.

Police Shootout Stats

For the purpose of this discussion I decided to use police shootout stats where I could. One of the reasons is that on average you can expect a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) to have some sort of firearm training and annual certification process.

The reason I decided to do it this way is to reflect that on average, an active duty LEO is probably going to have more training and more scenarios to simulate than armed teachers.

As a CCW holder in the state of Florida I can tell you that our training had exactly 0 tactical training and exactly 0 fire fight simulations.

Therefore I feel that I can assume that a typical police officer has more training than a random civilian with a concealed carry permit.

According to TIME Magazine Many police departments focus on decision-making as much as marksmanship, helping officers to decide in an instant whether to fire their weapon. Instructors will show targets–both good and bad guys–for only a split second, then score officers on their choices as well as their accuracy. The goal is to inoculate officers against the stress, allowing them to experience what a chaotic situation will feel like before they face the real thing.

Now that we have established a a common sense baseline, lets look at actual police shootout statistics.

According to pro gun website “Bearing Arms“ LEO’s in live firefight situations hit their intended target only 19% of the time in NYC.

In 1990, NYPD officer hit potential was only 19%. Eighty-one percent of the rounds they fired at criminals missed. At less than three yards, they hit only 38% of the time. From 3-7 yards, 11.5% and from 7-15 yards, only 9.4%.

The same site also referenced an 11 year study conducted in Miami that proved New Yorker’s were not just bad shots.

Metro-Dade Police 1990-2001 shooting data shed more light on issues seen elsewhere. During that 12-year period, Metro-Dade Police fired about 1,300 bullets at suspects, and missed more than 1,100 times. This suggests that Miami police fared no better than a 15.4% hit ratio, even though many of these incidents involved suspects who were later determined to be unarmed.