(PatriotWise.com) — Ohio is looking to purchase two mobile “shoot houses” to conduct active shooter training for school employees who have been approved to carry a firearm, the Daytona Daily News reported.
Under a law passed by the legislature in September 2022, non-law enforcement school staff who want to carry a firearm in school must first be approved by the district school board and the Ohio School Safety Center.
The law requires each staffer to complete an initial 24-hour training course to qualify. Staffers must then recertify each year by completing an eight-hour course called ASSET (Armed School Staff Essential Training).
To that end, the School Safety Center has requested two Mobile Modular Shoot House units from the North Carolina-based security service Kontek Industries.
According to School Safety Center spokesman Jay Carey, armed school employees must complete at least four hours of “scenario-based training” to carry a firearm on campus. The Kontek shoot houses would provide this kind of training.
The units include movable walls that can be set up in a variety of patterns to simulate active shooter scenarios. They also include breach doors and windows.
Jay Carey said that with more realistic training, school staff will be better prepared to respond to an active shooter situation.
The mobile units can be set up at a local gun range for live ammo training or they can be taken directly to a school if staffers are training without loaded weapons.
Currently, 67 schools or districts in 36 Ohio counties have registered armed response teams made up of teachers, staff, security officers, and administrators. That amounts to less than 10 percent of the school districts in the state.
Not every school district that has been certified by the Ohio School Safety Center will allow teachers or administrators to carry firearms. The Greater Dayton School, for example, only submits the names of its security staff.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in June 2021 that teachers can only be permitted to carry firearms in school if they undergo the same level of training, roughly 700 hours, required for police officers.
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