Just Say No to Guns for EMS

I began my career in 2001 as an unpaid intern with a fire and EMS department in central Ohio. It was part of my time as a cadet with the Columbus public schools’ fire service career center. As we sat on the apron of Station 112, having coffee and telling jokes, I was dispatched to my first shooting. I jumped on the truck and watched my mentors put on bulletproof vests. It was the first time I’d ever seen them worn outside of my orientation. I could not help but think, then and now, Why would someone want to hurt us? We’re the good guys!

Nineteen years later I’ve realized even the good guys can become victims. I will never stop asking why, and what can we do to protect ourselves. As a single dad, there is no responsibility I take more seriously than going home at the end of my shift. How can we train so we always achieve that goal?

Recently legislation was proposed in the Virginia General Assembly that would allow EMTs, paramedics, and firefighters to carry guns at work. While the intent of this legislation is to keep providers safe, I believe it would put us in more danger. It would mean an enormous shift in a provider’s role and responsibility on scene, for not only EMS but the entire public safety community—a transformation in the eyes of those we are dispatched to help, and from helpers to hurters in the eyes of those who harm others.

The Good Guys for the Bad Guys

As EMS providers we are the good guys for the good guys and the bad guys. We have such a unique position; our only mission is to help others. We have no intention and no way of hurting. If we shift that paradigm and give ourselves a way to harm others, we stop being the good guys for the bad guys and become another threat to them. That’s a scary thought for me as a paramedic, administrator, and servant of the public. The public trusts us to do no harm.

Having worked most of my career in Richmond, I understand how dangerous this job can be. I have been threatened. I have had to declare a mayday. I have been assaulted. I have looked down the barrel of a gun in someone else’s hands, and I have been shot at. I have been some places that scared me to the core, where someone is screaming in your face with a knife or a gun in their hand. Not once did I think having a gun would make me safer.

Other providers have told me their stories. Times where someone threatened them with a knife or gun, times they felt in fear of their lives. Some have said they wished they had a gun. My question is, what good would a gun have done? Whether they realize it or not, those EMS providers had an aura of protection around them. An aura that said, This person won’t hurt you. This person only wants to help you. I’m not blind to the fact that there are terrible people out there who want to hurt others regardless of their mission. But I don’t think putting a gun in the waistband of an EMS provider will help those situations. In fact, it may escalate scenarios that could have been deescalated.

I have heard my peers say that with the right training, EMS providers would be safe and effective carrying arms. They say we can follow the training guidelines of the Secret Service or air marshals. I have heard other EMS administrators say it would be too expensive to train providers to a sufficient standard and that the liability is too high. I’m not sure either argument is relevant. As the director of an EMS service, I balance the safety of my providers with the safety of the public. I must make decisions with both in mind. Cost and liability are not at the forefront of my decision-making. When it comes to this decision, I say no amount of training can compensate for the sacrifice of our most essential characteristic: the fact that we are only there to do good.

Without guns, how do we stay safe? I say we focus this energy on injury reduction and body-mechanics training. Spend that money on driver training. Agitate to stiffen the laws surrounding assault on public safety providers and the penalties for not moving over for emergency vehicles on the highway. Maybe focus instead on one of the biggest threats to EMS professionals, suicide. We can replace firearm training with well-being programs, better CISM programs to help providers deal with the horrors this job can contain, and maybe we save some lives rather than take them. Maybe more go home at the end of the day.

Maybe we do good in an era where doing bad to one another is often the order of the day.

Brian Hupp is director of EMS at Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, Tenn. Over the past decade he has served in multiple roles with the Richmond Ambulance Authority and was previously an offshore medic for Acadian Ambulance and assistant fire chief for the Mechanicsburg Fire Department in Ohio. He is a graduate of the American Ambulance Association’s Ambulance Service Manager program and an associate with Fitch & Associates.