Kenneth Yuers, a retired teacher who saved several students' lives after a gunman invaded his school in 2017, tells Newsmax that had he been allowed to have his weapon in the classroom, he could have been better prepared to protect the children who were being threatened.
"The last line of defense is a teacher, and it hurts me that these politicians are ideologues," Yuers told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" Thursday.
"You can't get rid of matches to stop people from starting fires, and you can't get rid of guns when there are 350 million of them," Yuers added. "Armed teachers are willing to protect kids."
Yuers explained how he was teaching at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School in rural California in November 2017, when a gunman crashed through the gates of the school.
"I was teaching in a rural school about 20 minutes from a law enforcement response," he recalled. "About one year before November 2017, when the incident took place, I had qualified to get my CCW, concealed carry weapons permit. I'm a veteran in the Air Force, in law enforcement, and I asked the principal, 'Hey, will I be allowed to carry here?' "
The principal said she did not believe the district superintendent would allow that, "so I didn't think much more of it after that," said Yuers.
He recalled how on Nov. 14, 2017, about 10 minutes before school was to start, he heard gunshots and decided to bring children inside, seconds before the gunman rammed the school's gates.
"He had shot at some parents on the way to school, and that's what we had heard and reacted to as he shot his way out of the truck," Yuers said. "I got my kids inside, but unfortunately there are still three students running caught in between the main part of the campus and where I was in my classroom, which was isolated."
Although he didn't see the gunman, he was "able to piece it together."
"He had an AR-15, and he was aiming to shoot them," said Yuers. "I was standing at the door and it was a terrible decision I had to make because I was unarmed. Do I potentially get shot, becoming a doorstop?"
Yuers was able to barricade the classroom's door with a computer charging cart, and told the 18 children, in fourth and fifth grades, to get down on the ground, according to a Time article written in the days after the attack.
The shooter got in, Yuers told Newsmax, but "by the grace of God or something, his gun jammed, and by the time he got it unjammed our custodian came around from the main part of campus. He drew the gunfire."
And now, as the shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, continue to shock the nation, Yuers says he is a strong proponent of arming teachers, but only if they want to hold weapons and be trained voluntarily.
The teachers must be trained properly and they must be licensed, he added.
"It has to be voluntary," he added. "Nobody should be forced, but willing to protect those kids, and not be in a situation where I had to put a Chromebook cart up against the door."
Yuers said if he'd been armed, he could have used the cart as a defense tool as he took out his weapon.
Until an attack happens, he added, the teachers' guns should never be un-holstered, "unless you're saving a life. It should be out of sight. Only the administrator needs to know it's even there."
According to a Los Angeles Times report after the Rancho Tehama shooting, just one child at the school was injured after the gunman, who came to the school during a rampage in the community, entered the school property.
He'd tried to enter other classrooms but was blocked and the school was quickly locked down, which officials said helped keep children from being killed.
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