Trump's plan to arm some teachers taken down by actual combat expert

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting which claimed 17 lives, suggestions have been circulating as to how to prevent more gun violence.

During a listening session with students and parents who were caught up in the incident, President Donald Trump came up with the controversial proposal of potentially arming certain trained teachers with guns.

In a series of tweets, Trump has since tried to deny that he never said such a thing but did say that if a school was known to have a number of "weapons talented teachers" then a "sicko" would never attack the school.

There has been a widespread uproar to Trump's idea but perhaps the most powerful response has come from a man who knows firsthand how dangerous and unpredictable guns can be.

Brandon Friedman served as an Army infantry officer during conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and in an op-ed letter for NY Daily News he reveals why Trump's idea wouldn't solve the issue.

He begins the letter by describing an incident in Iraq where, despite his years of training, he still froze when confronted with an armed gunman.

Friedman uses this as an example as to why a person, no matter their experience, can always make mistakes in the midst of a tense moment.

He then goes on to explain in great detail why Trump's vision would only fail and points to examples where armed persons were present at other shootings and still failed to prevent a tragedy.

There were armed guards at Columbine, the Pulse nightclub and in Las Vegas at the time of the massacre. At Parkland too.

Time and again, armed civilians or security guards are out-manoeuvred, out-gunned and too inexperienced.

It’s difficult for a rational person to reach a state where they can go toe-to-toe with an armed psychopath who has nothing to lose.

I was professionally trained and still almost blew it at the moment of truth.

If armed security guards often don’t stop shootings, teachers have no chance.

Here’s why: Instructing a teacher in how to use a gun does very little.

Guns aren’t magical objects that turn a person into a skilled warrior, no matter how proficient one is at marksmanship.

Friedman adds that just because someone is armed with a gun it doesn't necessarily mean that they will know how to fight or hit a target precisely.

Gun fighting is less about the weapon and more about a state of mind. It’s about will.

The will to assert yourself over — and kill — your armed adversary who wants to kill you.

Developing this mental skill takes months or years of dedicated training, and a singular focus that teachers don’t, and shouldn't have.

Teaching someone to handle a gun is a very different skill from teaching them how to fight. People who haven’t fought (or at least been trained to fight) often seem to miss this completely.

You can teach someone the basics of marksmanship pretty quickly — like how to be safe and how to hit a target. But you can’t quickly teach them to fight and kill reflexively and instinctively.

Most importantly, you can’t quickly train them to stand their ground when faced with a mortal threat. That’s a completely different skill.

He concludes his point by making the sage observation that teachers should be teaching and not being trained to fight.

Normal humans seek to flee, evade and hide at the sound of gunfire at close range.

If you think you’re going to teach Mrs. Adams or Coach Peterson to react effectively in a gun battle after a week-long firearms course, you're kidding yourself. It takes years of focused training.

Anyone who tells you that arming teachers is a solution is clueless. It’ll cost kids’ lives.

Teachers need to be teaching, not training to fight. But they’re up against weapons of war. And that’s on us.

Rather than arming teachers to shoot back, the more obvious solution is to prohibit the sale and ownership of weapons like the AR-15. And hopefully we will. Soon.

You can follow Friedman on Twitter @FriedmanDC.

HT NY Daily News

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