Dr. Ignatius Piazza’s announcement a little over three days ago that Front Sight Firearms Training Facility would be offering free, comprehensive firearm training to designated School Safety Monitors from any and all schools across the nation caused not a small amount of stir. Not surprisingly, many teachers, administrators and parents were frightened by this notion. Many conservative thinkers (that’s small “c” conservative, not big “C” Conservative) are convinced that guns are evil; to them the very thought of putting them into schools is anathema.

But knowledge is the key to this problem, for through knowledge comes responsibility. With responsible gun control in capable hands, school shootings, murders and atrocities will come to a screeching halt. Dr. Ignatius Piazza, owner and founder of Front Sight Firearms Training Facility, the largest firearms training facility in America, is willing and eager to do whatever it takes to prevent further horrors in America. He is willing to train any designated school staff members in responsible, effective use of firearms, to prevent further atrocities on school grounds.

Dave Clark, a graduate of Front Sight’s training routine and a recently retired junior high school teacher of 25 years had this to say about Front Sight’s training program:

“Front Sight provides safe and responsible training to a level that exceeds law enforcement standards. Among the many lessons taught, I learned universally accepted rules in justifiable use of deadly force. More importantly, I learned when not to shoot and how to be more mentally prepared to see a lethal confrontation coming before it happens in order to avoid it. The firearms training is second to none and clearly gives the graduates the skill needed to save the lives of those in their charge if ever attacked. If my school district chose to adopt a policy of sending selected teachers to Front Sight for concealed handgun training, I would wholeheartedly support it and volunteer as a Safety Monitor. There is no reason for our children to continue to be victimized when free, professional training is available to stop school attacks.”

Retired law enforcement firearms instructor, Mike Waidelich from Bakersfield, California strongly supports the Front Sight concept of arming and training teachers.

"Nearly every tragedy on school grounds in the entire 30 years of my law enforcement career could have been prevented or the damage done considerably limited, by the presence of an armed and trained individual."

In schools adopting Ignatius Piazza’s program, teachers will be trained to carry a concealed weapon, so potential attackers will not know which teachers are armed and which are not. As to the effectiveness of concealed weapons preventing crime, Piazza references John Lott, Jr., from the University of Chicago School of Law. Lott published Crime, Deterrence and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns in July 1996. Mr. Lott's research of cross-sectional time-series data from all 3054 U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992 found that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deterred violent crime and appeared to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed handgun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly.

With such evidence and support, can we as voters do anything but support both Dr. Ignatius Piazza and our school districts in their decisions to send their Safety Monitors to his Front Sight institute to be trained for free? What school can afford to not send their teachers to this free training? Speak to your district officials, contact your administrators, inform them of the necessity of arming your school’s teachers – this is how we will handle America’s epidemic of atrocities.