Following the Parkland massacre, the anti-gun forces started pushing to ban certain weapons because they were all scary and stuff. They were convinced they could change the laws of the nation to ban these guns.

While a few states have changed some laws, mostly about ages of people who can buy rifles, they haven’t gotten nearly as much traction as they thought they would.

Meanwhile, schools are arming teachers–a pro-gun proposal that was widely mocked by anti-gun zealots–and a healthy rate.

The latest to do so is Lee County, VA.

A small school district in far southwestern Virginia is set to become the first in the commonwealth to arm teachers in classrooms — a decision that is prompting criticism from the state’s top law enforcement official.

The five-member Lee County School Board voted unanimously last week to approve a plan that will select an undisclosed number of teachers and staff members to carry concealed weapons or store them in safes on school property.

Applicants will undergo background screenings and psychological evaluations, and those who are selected will receive training this summer, school officials said. They said they expect the plan to be implemented by September for the 11 schools in the 3,200-student district.

“People more or less want something done, and this was the best we could do at this time,” said Michael Kidwell, chairman of the Lee County School Board. “This is better than doing nothing.”

Just four of the district’s schools have school security officers, also known as school resource officers. The school system cannot afford to hire more officers for the remaining schools, so arming teachers and other school employees was the “next best thing we could do,” Kidwell said.

To be clear, I don’t actually approve of putting teachers through additional screenings. A Virginia carry permit should be more than enough to warrant a teacher carrying on campus.

That said, armed teachers will provide a significant deterrence effect. While school resource officers are great, they’re necessarily limited. There’s only one or two per school generally. That means they can only be in so many places at once and may actually become targets of a determined attacker.

But teachers? That’s something else.

By not knowing who is carrying, no individual teachers become targets simply because they’re carrying. No one would know, which means a rampage might begin and end so quickly that no one gets hurt. Yes, that includes the shooter, though to be frank, I’m not worried about them.

No one thinks that teachers should become security ninjas who train for combat on a regular basis as part of their everyday jobs. We simply think teachers, as free citizens, should have the right to defend themselves. In the process, they’ll defend numerous students.

This isn’t rocket science, but I have little doubt that despite more and more districts arming teachers, we’ll see more and more backlash from anti-gun jihadis who continue to labor under the delusion that “Gun Free Zone” signs are magic talismans that ward off guns despite ample evidence to the contrary.