A Christian School Is Arming Teachers to Thwart Mass Shooters - Here's Why Other Schools Should Follow
America’s Founding Fathers saw no conflict between their Christian faith and gun ownership, especially for use in self-defense and even against a potential tyrannical government. And they were careful to enshrine their support for guns — “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” — in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In contrast, so many modern Christian leaders, especially those with national platforms, come down on the side of comprehensive gun control laws. Such a view is understandable given the weight of their calling and a focus fixed so firmly on peace and the heavenly life.
But at no time does such a view seem more impractical or dismissive of our present earthly reality than following the tragedy of a school shooting. That’s when they take to the airwaves or social media to reissue the standard calls for stricter gun control measures because, as they see it, that’s what Jesus would do.
Invariably, they cite Democrats’ well-worn talking point — as prominent pastor Daniel Darling did in a much-debated 2012 essay — that “we should be willing to endure the inconvenience if it saves one child from death.”
But at least one modern Christian leader, albeit of a much smaller flock, has made a bold move rooted in the reverse argument: If a good guy with a gun can save even one child from death, that’s what needs to happen.
In early January, Dr. Lindsay Laurich, the superintendent of Siouxland Christian School in Sioux City, Iowa, made the decision — nationally unprecedented for a Christian school — to arm members of her staff to safeguard against anyone wishing to “do evil.”
Sioux City is, of course, only a stone’s throw away from Perry, Iowa, where on Jan. 4, 17-year-old Dylan Butler shot five students and three staff members at Perry High School before killing himself. A sixth-grader, Ahmir Jolliff, died that day, and the school’s principal, Dan Marburger, died 10 days later from his injuries.
Although Laurich’s announcement came only a day after the tragedy, and acknowledged it with a call for prayer, her “difficult” decision was actually 18 months in the making.
In a published letter of explanation to parents, Laurich defended the decision, ultimately saying, “This is a necessary step we must take.” In truth, her well-reasoned argument could very well answer anyone who clings to the notion that posting “gun-free zone” signs on school grounds still cuts it:
“Dear SCS Families,
It is an unfortunate reality that schools have become the target of those who wish to do evil. Around our nation and sadly more close to home we see threats emerging on a regular basis. We pray for the community of Perry, Iowa, which experienced an active shooter event yesterday.
Because school safety is our highest priority at Siouxland Christian School we have determined that it is essential that we take further steps to secure our building and to ensure that your child(ren) are protected at school.
Starting next week, certain members of SCS staff who have been specifically trained will be armed on campus. The School Board and Administration have developed the process for selecting and training staff with input from law enforcement, our insurance carrier, legal advisors and industry experts. This has been a serious and diligent process over the course of the past year.
Advertisement - story continues belowIn the event of an active shooter event these armed SCS staff are trained to go directly to the threat. Their response will allow teachers and students to get to safe positions and will provide an active response until law enforcement is able to arrive.
The staff who have been selected and trained will remain anonymous, and with God’s help this layer of protection will never need to be deployed. We expect no changes to the day to day experiences of students and staff.
On a personal note, I want you to know that this decision was a difficult one. When I entered the teaching profession it was unimaginable that someone would shoot students and teachers in a school. But the landscape has changed. If a tragic event were to occur at SCS, I need to be able to stand in front of you and say that we have done all that we can do. This is a necessary step we must take.
School buildings should be safe. Teachers and children should not be afraid to come to school. We must employ all of the tools and resources at our disposal in order to be prepared for worst case scenarios.
Advertisement - story continues belowWe thank you for trusting us with your most precious gifts: your children. With God’s help may we do all that we can to uphold this trust and ensure a bright future for the next generation.”
“Obviously, to take the step to have armed staff in our school is a big one,” Laurich told KTIV-TV, a local news outlet. “And it requires a lot of conversation with a lot of stakeholders.
“As the school board and administration, we came together and said, you know, what else can we do? What can we do above all the things that we’ve already been doing — the trainings, the practice drills, the emergency manuals that we have. What’s the next step we can take?”
She also said the decision took “a lot of praying.”
Laurich has no greater defender than Woodbury County Sheriff Chad Sheehan, who is charged with the safety of approximately 105,000 residents in the sixth-most populated county in Iowa.
“I applaud her craft, the guts to do the right thing, knowing that you might take some criticism. … Doing the right thing requires you to put yourself out there,” Sheehan said in a telephone interview with The Western Journal. “I think they’ll see their enrollment will actually go up.”
“I’m certainly no theologian,” he continued in answer to would-be critics. “But I don’t believe that because you’re a Christian it means you have to allow yourself to be victimized. There’s nothing that would teach that. In fact, I’m sure there’s Scripture that would say the other way around.
“There’s St. Michael, the patron saint of law enforcement. He certainly went in and cleaned things up. Unfortunately, when evildoers want to do evil, it requires good people who are willing to stand up.”
Sheehan, who along with Lt. Don Armstrong facilitated the training of Laurich’s staff, emphasized, “The average response time for law enforcement from the initial attack is going to be somewhere around seven to 11 minutes. So what do the people in the building do in that first seven minutes? Professional responders are minutes away, but seconds save your life.”
He ought to know. In addition to his role as sheriff, he also founded Sheehan Strategic Solutions, which specializes in training and preparing businesses, churches and schools for active shooter situations.
He’s done it for a decade, but these days, under the Biden administration, business is booming.
That’s no mystery given recent headlines that have included:
- The 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Oxford, Michigan, which resulted in four dead and seven wounded.
- The 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in 22 dead and 18 wounded.
- The 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, which resulted in seven dead and one wounded.
- The aforementioned 2024 Perry High School shooting in Perry, Iowa, which resulted in two dead and six wounded.
All of that is why Sheehan is proposing going beyond Laurich’s “necessary step” at Siouxland Christian School and other fledgling public school programs like it around the country.
Instead of merely training and arming school staff, he’s aiming to protect schools by certifying and deputizing staff members and concerned citizen volunteers like several his office has trained.
Sheehan countered the notion that his “certified reserve deputy program” would simply hand a gun to the “second-grade teacher, that little blue-haired lady close to retirement who would be firing off a round.”
The sheriff understands that concern. “But the plan I’m talking about implementing [involves] going through maybe hundreds of hours of training,” he explained. “They’re going to be sworn in as a reserve deputy in the state of Iowa. Once they identify themselves as a reserve deputy, they’re acting on the sheriff’s behalf. They have all the authority to do this.”
For some time now he’s been making the case for his idea to state legislators, and several on both sides of the aisle seem interested.
Maybe that’s because this is Iowa we’re talking about, a red state where guns are a way of life. But more likely it’s because, to the initially reluctant, Sheehan makes the unarguable point that “when — God forbid — there’s a dead kid on the floor of a school, nobody — nobody — cares whether their parent was a Democrat or Republican.”
Even if he manages to get bipartisan support, however, there’s still a major roadblock to overcome: the powerful insurance companies that underwrite the public school policies required to keep the doors open. To date, they have been staunchly averse to armed personnel of any kind stationed on school grounds. Laurich didn’t have to navigate around that roadblock since she oversees a private school.
“I understand that an insurance company is a private business. They have the right to pick and choose what risks they’re willing to take,” Sheehan said. But he cautions that they may want to ponder at least one scenario: Could an insurance company that prevented a school from protecting its students using Sheehan’s program be held legally liable if a shooting took place?
As a father of five children who assures doubters that “I wouldn’t do anything that I wouldn’t do in my own child’s school,” Sheehan concedes that resistance to what he considers such a “commonsense approach” often frustrates him.
“I think for some people, the idea of having firearms out there somehow inherently makes them less safe. The truth is that it’s the firearm in the hands of an evil person that makes them less safe. Whether the evil person has a rock or a hammer or a firearm, they can still cause harm. And they can hurt, injure and kill people.”
Franklin Graham, whose opposition to gun control puts him squarely in a minority of prominent Christian leaders, would likely agree with Sheehan. Even in response to mass shootings, Graham has made the critical point that the root of violence is “the evil and depraved heart of man.”
“This is why moral, heartfelt transformation is really the only solution to the deadly and dangerous ills that are plaguing our nation,” Graham has argued. “The Scripture says we need a new heart, not new legislation or regulations. ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you’ (Ezekiel 36:26).”
The ultimate point, Sheehan said in reference to the practice of limiting the safety of children to mere “gun-free zone” postings, is this: “Everywhere in America is a murder-free zone, and it doesn’t stop people from committing murder. And in some states they’ll execute you for it. And that doesn’t stop it.
“So why would anybody think a sign on a door is going to stop a homicidal person from carrying out homicidal intentions? That sign has never stopped anybody anywhere that is truly intent on killing people.”
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