Ohio Sheriff Offers Free Gun Training To 50 Teachers; Forced To Cap At 300 After Huge Response

An Ohio sheriff who offered free firearms training to 50 teachers was forced to cap his offer at 300, after a flood of local school employees signed up in the wake of a Florida high school shooting that left 17 people dead. 

“We put it online, we thought we’d get 20 school teachers maybe. Within 20 minutes we had 40. Within an hour we had 100. Within four hours we had 200. By the next morning, at 300, we cut it off,” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said on “Fox & Friends.”

If you listen 2 media teachers do not want to carry weapons in schools. We have over 300 said want 2.

— Richard K. Jones (@butlersheriff) February 24, 2018

School personnel start gun training in butler county Ohio Monday ccw. We will train this week over 120.

— Richard K. Jones (@butlersheriff) February 24, 2018

The Parkland, FL shooting has renewed a national debate on the Second Amendment. Sheriff Jones noted that only a few schools in Ohio allow the concealed carry of a firearm, and that the plan to arm teachers would only work if “the school boards have the guts to make it a reality.” Jones suggested that school staffers should go through mandatory firearms training to help them identify the sounds of gunfire. 

“We have to do something here because we can’t wait for our government to do anything. All they do is fight, they get nothing done,” he said.

Four days ago during a White House “listening session” on school shootings, president Trump suggested arming teachers – a call he as repeated since. 

“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly, and the good thing about a suggestion like that — and we’re going to be looking at it very strongly, and I think a lot of people are going to be opposed to it. I think a lot of people are going to like it. But the good thing is you’re going to have a lot of [armed] people with that,” said the President. 

President Trump on concealed carry for teachers: “If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms, they could very well end the attack very quickly.” pic.twitter.com/SnKjyYH0uw

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) February 21, 2018

“We can’t stop the school shootings, we can’t stop guns from being manufactured, but we’ve got to do something, we’ve got to make the schools more of a hardened target,” said Sheriff Jones – adding that the class was open to teachers, secretaries and maintenance workers.