I know this is an old post, but the topic is still relevant.
if it's a student or a past student that is doing the shooting "in most cases it is" don't you think he or she would just kill the teacher and then kill the rest in the room if he or she knows a teacher may be armed ?? it is not like many schools allow teachers this in the first place. the shooter may get shot in the hallway moving to the next class room, but only if the teachers move to the sound of the shots . and not cower in the back corner with the kids or stay in THEIR room to protect only their class.. quite frankly we will not know how the teachers will act till it happens in their classroom or school.
This is why concealed carry should be allowed everywhere. The possibility of every law abiding, trained, confident gun owner carrying their self defense weapon, every day, with NO gun free zones, would be enough to heavily diminish the chance some coward would come around looking for easy victims.
No one can say exactly how they would react in any given situation in life, be it driving to the store or walking your dog, this is where training and experience comes in as a firearm owner. This is why we practice at the range, this is why we stay in yellow alert mode, this is why we choose to prepare for the worst.
I'd rather have a fighting chance, personally.
what happens when the police arrive and they come across armed adults in the hallway??.. not a situation i would want to be in .. if the police have to keep stopping to deal with the armed teachers it may take them longer to find the shooter.. it's a no win situation..
What happens when the police arrive?
Here's a couple of possibilities:
If the protector sees them first they don't point the gun at the police. And, unless they are in process of neutralizing the attacker, they are not actively shooting and will know that they should put their gun on the ground and keep their hands visible until the police have assessed the threat level.
Law enforcement officers are also trained in such matters.
you can't stop crazy. or random acts. or predict when a kid that is a good kid, gets picked on one too many times by bully's , and steals dads gun and wants to get even.. with the amount of school shooting over the past few years, the only thing that has been proven to 100% not work... GUN Free Zone law !!
I agree that life is unpredictable and that gun free zones are the problem. teachers know their students well, we cannot ignore that. Just because we don't know the future does not mean that we should not prepare in advance. Having an attitude that we should just give up or give in is what is wrong with society. Unless people take a realistic approach to solving these problems instead of just hoping a utopia manifests by means of tyrannical policies, we will never be able to prevent any destructive behaviors of evil in this world.
We need to be alert and be prepared. Period.