PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Gunfire rang out as Fatima Bibi squeezed off three shots, hitting her target every time. Then she lowered her Glock pistol, turned to her fellow academics and smiled.

Her instructor was smiling, too.

“These ladies are better shots than some of our men,” said Abdul Latif, a police firearms instructor. “They learned to handle a gun in just two days. Their confidence level is remarkable.”

Dangerous times call for unusual measures in northwestern Pakistan, where the police are offering firearms instruction to schoolteachers and university lecturers since the Taliban massacred 150 people at a Peshawar school in December.

Ms. Bibi was one of eight lecturers from the Frontier College for Women, a postgraduate college, who attended a two-day firearms course at the provincial police firing range last week.