On May 2, 2023, Fox News Channel published a story featuring an interview with CIS VP of Special Projects, Craig Gundry, discussing armed teachers as a protective strategy in schools.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/school-districts-across-america-consider-arming-teachers-aftermath-nashville-school-shooting

Unfortunately, some of the most valuable points we discussed in that interview were omitted from final publication.

As a first point, arming teachers is not a reliable strategy for response to active shooter attacks. As one source of support for this perspective, a team of researchers at Purdue University evaluated armed school employees during an analysis of alternative response models and concluded that employees carrying concealed weapons were far less effective than a school resource officer and performed only marginally better than police dispatched in response to 911 calls.[1]

Our position on this topic is clear. If schools wish to authorize teachers to carry concealed weapons, armed school employees should only be regarded as an additional readiness measure to supplement the existing presence of a professional armed responder (SRO or properly-trained armed security officer). And if schools decide to allow employees to carry firearms, they should approach this idea in a manner that is responsible, effective, and defensible from a liability perspective.

As a starting point, measures should be implemented to ensure that armed school employees are properly trained in safe firearms handling and marksmanship skills. There’s a major difference between shooting at paper targets on a firearms range and engaging a moving aggressor in an environment dense with students. To address this matter, states such as Virginia and Florida mandate specialized training and certification for security officers and school employees assigned in armed capacities.[2][3] However, many schools and districts adopting this measure overlook the importance of training standards.

Next, policies and procedures should be developed regarding approved methods of concealed carry and firearm storage and approved weapons and ammunition. Likewise, the role of armed teachers in responding to shooting events should be clearly defined so there is no implied expectation that an armed teacher is expected to seek out and neutralize a gunman. In other words, teachers are permitted to be armed for the protection of themselves and students in their immediate presence with no further expectations.   

For more information about this topic, see the video below. Our perspective about arming school employees can be found at 1:57:43.

On 1 May 2023, CIS VP of Special Projects, Craig Gundry, was invited to speak on the subject of planning and conducting enterprise-level risk assessments at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Corporate Security Leadership Conference. The aim of the presentation was to assist BCBS corporate security leaders in designing an effective approach for evaluating the effectiveness of their corporate security programs and avoiding problems often encountered when embarking on large-scale assessment projects.

Some of the topics included:

• • Compliance with Best Practices and Effectiveness in Risk Management
  • Differences Between Security Risk Assessment and Security Program Assessment
  • Planning Considerations for Enterprise-Level Risk Assessments
  • Defining the Objectives, Scope of Assessment, and Other Planning Topics
  • Assessment Methodology
  • Team Organization
  • Managing Potential Liability Conditions when Working With Consultants

To those that attended, it was an honor to meet you and we hope the information we discussed is helpful in improving the performance of your corporate security programs.

On 23 September, 16 security professionals from the European Parliament joined the ranks our global community of Anti-Terrorism Officer program graduates. The program was presented through our sister company, the S2 Safety & Intelligence Institute, by CIS VP of Special Projects Craig Gundry.

To those who attended, it was a pleasure working with you and we look forward to meeting your colleagues during our next session!

Normally we post a class photo to honor the graduates of our public programs, but for obvious reasons that would be inappropriate for this group. Instead we’ll settle for a pic of a happy instructor thankful to return to one of his favorite cities to teach an amazing group of professionals.

To others interested in the S2 Anti-Terrorism Officer program, we are working on a schedule of public courses for 2023. In the meantime, a new distance learning version is available through the S2 web site.