Fact-checking is an odd industry. We've seen plenty of examples of "fact-checks" that seemingly dispute the actual facts, ignoring the plethora of evidence supporting an initial claim, all because the fact-checker really wanted the claim to be false.

Others will simply gloss over inconvenient facts and twist things so that they can justify a favorable result, even if it's utter nonsense.

But earlier today, I came across a fact-check about armed teachers. The question being addressed is whether or not 31 states allow armed teachers. This is, of course, true. However, the fact-checker actually went a bit further and illustrated a bit of an issue with the laws permitting this. In particular, how it may have made the Apalachee High School shooting possible, though they didn't necessarily mean to.

The overwhelming majority of states that allow teachers to carry guns require school teachers to get permission from either the school or the district first. And some states also require teachers to get special training, or to be chosen for a particular school safety program before being allowed to carry on school property.

An Oct. 27, 2023, report from VERIFY partner station 11Alive found just three of 180 Georgia school districts permitted teachers to carry guns at that time. A March 31, 2023, report from the Ohio Capital Journal found that 22 Ohio school districts of the state’s 600 districts permitted teachers to carry guns in schools. In June 2018, Firearms Owners Against Crime said that 217 Texas school districts, 21% of the state’s more than 1,000 districts, allowed staff to be armed.

The RAND Corporation, a research group, could not find any credible studies showing that laws allowing armed staff in schools either increased or decreased school shootings and violence in a Jan. 10, 2023, research review.

Now, Georgia and Ohio are fairly pro-gun states, yet only a tiny fraction of those states' school districts allow guns. Texas has 21 percent, but think about Texas for just a moment. The fact that only a fifth of all districts allow armed teachers is a drop in the proverbial bucket.

In other words, when states create these laws, they empower local school districts to make the decision. 

However, allowing school staff to carry firearms is a controversial thing. As a result, a lot of districts opt not to even bring it up because they don't want the political fight that will follow, especially since we know that it'll get ridiculously ugly.

In Georgia, just three of the 180 districts allowed armed teachers. Those are Laurens, Gordon, and Fannin Counties. 

Apalachee High School is in the Barrow County School System.

In other words, there weren't any armed school staff besides the school resource officers. Those officers had to get to the scene of the attack and engage the killer, which prompted him to surrender.

But again, what if the first teacher who saw him--the one who refused to open the door because they saw the gun--had been armed? What if there were another teacher in that hallway who was armed?

RAND can't find any credible studies showing armed school staff decrease school shootings, but let's be real here. When just three of 180 school districts arm teachers, can we really expect there to be any such studies? Here we have to just basic logic, though, and know that teachers who have guns can defend themselves and, by extension, their students.

They can't do that if the laws kick the can down to the local level where local officials have to make that determination. The states need to step up and lay it down and tell local districts that they will have armed teachers. Otherwise, we're going to see more Apalachee High incidents, all because local officials just don't want to be bothered.