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The Daily Signal
Meet the
Colorado Woman Training Teachers to Use Guns to Stop School Violence
Katrina Willis
July 07, 2017
This fall, some Colorado teachers will return to school armed with
knowledge—and guns.
Laura Carno, author of “Government Ruins Nearly Everything: Reclaiming
Social Issues from Uncivil Servants,” is bringing advanced firearms
training to school teachers.
“Can government stop school shooting[s]? The answer is no … How do we
as a community keep our kids safer if we say government is not the
right place to fix that problem?” Carno told The Daily Signal in a
phone interview.
Her answer is a training program called the Faculty/Administrator
Safety Training and Emergency Response, or FASTER. Carno’s nonprofit
Second Amendment advocacy group, Coloradans for Civil Liberties,
planned to bring the program to Colorado teachers this summer.
The Program
FASTER trains school workers “not to replace police and EMT, but to
allow teachers, administrators, and other personnel on-site to stop
school violence rapidly and render medical aid immediately,” according
to the FASTER website.
“The faster you stop the shooter, the faster you stop the bleeding, the
fewer people die,” Carno said.
In Colorado, handguns are permitted on school grounds “in conformance
with the policy of the employing agency,” according to the Law Center
to Prevent Gun Violence.
The workshops provide over 26 hours of training, and the curriculum is
taught by career law enforcement professionals, according to Carno.
The program’s tuition is $1,000 per participant, but Coloradans for
Civil Liberties sponsors some school workers through scholarships.
How It Came to Be
Carno said she began thinking more seriously about the Second Amendment
while facing “assault weapon” bans in California in the 1990s.
“I was very disappointed, living in California, that some of the
Republicans were [changing] on gun rights,” Carno said.
In 2013, she saw another anti-Second Amendment state legislation
push—this time in Colorado. These laws included these requirements,
among others, according to The Denver Post:
Universal background checks for firearm transfers.
A fee for background checks.
Prohibition of ammunition magazines with more than 15 rounds.
“I wasn’t in the position to do anything,” Carno said.
So, she co-founded Coloradans for Civil Liberties with the motto,
“Restoring Freedom One Round at a Time.” The group works with the
Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Denver.
After attending a FASTER session in Ohio, she said she decided to bring
the program to her home state.
“The state with Columbine and a number of other shootings … our kids
should be as safe as Ohio’s kids,” Carno said.
Carno said the community response has been “great” and considers her
efforts to be nonpartisan safety measures: “Regardless of
political ideology, parents want their kids safe. What we know about
these shootings is that they end quickly when the bad guy is confronted
with somebody who’s armed.”
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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