Palo Cedro’s North Cow Creek School District will now allow teachers with concealed carry permits to bring their firearms to school for defense of themselves and their students.

By adopting this policy, North Cow Creek became the fifth district in the state to allow teachers to be armed. The other four districts that allow concealed carry at school are Kern High School District; Kingsburg Joint Union High School District; Folsom Cordova Unified School District; and Anderson Union High School District, which is in Shasta County, the same county in which North Cow Creek is located.

Record Searchlight reports, “It makes sense that Shasta County now has at least two districts that support CCW permit-holders — at 5,116 permits, it had the third-highest number of them [in the state], according to 2013 California Department of Justice data compiled by the Calguns Foundation.”

Moreover, a third district in Shasta County is already being pressured to allow teachers with concealed permits to carry in its schools. Parent Rich Gallardo has sent a letter to Pacheco Union School District asking them to adopt a policy similar to Anderson Union and North Cow Creek. Gallardo, who has as a child in Prairie Elementary School, said, “They are representing me and my kid, and I’ve got to give them at least an official chance on the record to address this issue. It’s not just for my kid — it’s for the whole district, really.”

At least 12 school districts in Colorado recently adopted policies that allow their teachers and staff to carry at school for defense of themselves and their students. And teachers are allowed to carry in at least 40 districts in Ohio.

Allowing teachers to carry became a security measure of choice for many districts across the country following the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School. That attack occurred in a gun-free zone, and unarmed teachers and staff’s only options were to hide or to charge the gunman, sacrificing their own lives in an attempt to tackle him or knock him off balance. Five school districts in California, at least 12 in Colorado, and at least 40 in Ohio believe there is a better way.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.