Your comment about arming teachers reminds me of something, Steve. (I hope I didn't mention it to you before. I've been repeating myself lately - well since, the 1990s.) In Michigan, a standard response to school shootings is calls to arm teachers. My small arms instructors in the Navy would have called that a bad idea. When I was stationed at NAS Keflavik in 1975-76, we had a "Ground Defense Force": a battalion of sailors trained by the 180-man Marine garrison to assist with defending the base in the event the Soviets tried to take it. (As was described, by the way, in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising.) Though women weren't supposed to take up arms back then, I was able to wangle a spot, on the grounds that my gender wouldn't protect me when the shooting started.

The Marines trained us to use M-14s. Not M-16s; the model back then was apt to jam with snow, ice, and lava particles. We all clamored to carry .45 sidearms, too, 'cause it would have been so freakin' cool to have pistols on our hips. The Marines wouldn't let us. They said it took way more training to be proficient with a pistol in combat, especially in close quarters, which was where we'd be most likely to use them. Here's my point. A Gunny told us to imagine being in a room at the Air Ops terminal with four other sailors. A Soviet soldier with an AK-47 busts in. The Gunny said the first fumble-fingered sailor to draw their 45 would shoot everyone except the Sov, who'd then cut them down with the AK. That's what comes to mind when people talk about arming teachers.