Dispatch: Pro-gun group spending big dough to offer arms training for teachers

by Chad D. Baus

This week, Buckeye Firearms Foundation announced the launch of an ambitious program.

Now that we've created and tested our "active killer" response training program, otherwise known as FASTER (Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response), with 24 teachers, it's time to roll it out on a bigger scale. The Foundation has just announced that it will commit to funding three additional classes at Tactical Defense Institute (TDI) this summer and three additional classes in northeast Ohio with "Top Shot" finalist Chris Cerino. In addition, we're working on a "train the trainer" class to jump start similar programs around Ohio and in other states.

The news is quickly spreading. From the Columbus Dispatch:

Once you realize you have a demand for something, you've got to make your product available to more people, right? It's not a novel technique, but the Buckeye Firearms Foundation announced today that they're applying it to their novel concept: getting groups of school teachers, administrators and faculty together and teaching them how to use a gun should a shooter enter their school.

The foundation is attempting to raise $100,000 to send 144 educators to gun school for "active shooter" training.

That's following what the foundation, a nonprofit spin-off of the Buckeye Firearms Association, considered a successful $30,000 pilot program that brought in 24 Ohio educators in March, handpicked from 1,400 applicants.

Jim Irvine, the foundation's president, said in March that more teachers would come to the first-ever Armed Teacher Training Program if they got more money.

"Now that we've created and tested the training with 24 teachers, it's time to roll it on a bigger scale," Irvine wrote Wednesday in an email to 43,000 recipients on the foundation's mailing list. They've committed to funding six more classes, but they still need more money.

It wasn't immediately clear how close the foundation is to hitting its $100,000 funding mark.

They insist none of the money they're asking for is for the foundation. It's just that expensive to put together such a program. After all, the foundation has in the past paid for three days of food, hotel rooms, ammunition and instruction for program attendees.

"The money is for our kids," Irvine wrote, adding that based on the percentage of people who have pledged in response to mass emails the past, the foundation could pick up $93,600. "Are our kids worth $20?"

The country is responding. In the letter, we explained that "we don't need you to give us a lot. We know times are still difficult and many people are out of work or having trouble paying the bills. Some of us are going through hard times too. So all we're asking for is $20. That's enough to pay for one box of ammo."

Donor T.B. responded by donating $400, with a note saying that "I have 4 Grandkids in school, who are each worth more than the $20." He is just one of many who have responded to the call for help.

Can you spare $20 this month to help us train 144 more teachers and start taking this vital training to many other locations where even more teachers can be trained?

This is the most important program we have ever started. It has become the central focus of our Foundation. And the results will far outweigh the costs.

Because this isn't just about training armed teachers to protect our kids. It's about changing the mindset in our schools. This is ground zero for the culture war in America. And if we can change the mindset of our school system, we can start to change the mindset of the entire nation.

Killers enter our schools because WE LET THEM. Our society trains our kids from a very early age the perverted idea that being compliant and passive in the face of evil is somehow noble.

Kids learn to cower, beg, and plead with monsters who laugh as they murder them one-by-one.

The "active killer" training isn't as much about putting guns in school as it is about stiffening the backbone of our communities.

It's about sending a message to the next wanna be mass murdering coward that at least some schools won't be easy targets ... because we're all fed up with being victims.

That's what your $20 can do.

Are you with us? Can we count on you?

If you want to give more that's fine. $100 ... $75 ... $50 ... whatever you think this training is worth.

But all I'm asking for is $20.

Click the donate button below and DONATE ONLINE NOW:

Remember ... Buckeye Firearms Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization. Donations to the Foundation are tax-deductible.

If you'd rather donate with a check, make it payable specifically to BUCKEYE FIREARM FOUNDATION. Not "Buckeye" or "Buckeye Firearms" or "Buckeye Firearms Association." You have to make it payable to BUCKEYE FIREARMS FOUNDATION or it won't get into the right account and it won't help the FASTER teacher training program.

Send your check to:

FASTER Teacher Training
c/o Buckeye Firearms Foundation
15 West Winter Street
Delaware, Ohio 43015

I want to thank you in advance for making the effort to do what's right. Most people won't. Most people are sheep. It's always the few, the sheepdogs like you, who choose to act and make a difference.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.