The Mat-Su School Board just reinvented the FFDO program

I was a Federal Flight Deck Officer. Most folks have never heard of the program, but it came out of 9/11. Congress passed the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act in 2002 and told TSA to train and deputize volunteer airline pilots as federal law enforcement officers. One job, defend the cockpit against a hijacker. Training happens at a federal facility, you stay current or you are out, and your identity stays confidential. The FFDO program has covered tens of millions of flights since 2003. I went through it. I carried under it.

When I read the Mat-Su School Board’s draft policy on staff concealed carry, I recognized it right away. It is the same idea, applied to a school. That is not a criticism. It is the reason this works.

An airplane at 35,000 feet has a problem law enforcement cannot fix. If someone makes it through that cockpit door, nobody is coming to help. The only people who can stop it are already on board. That was the lesson on September 11, and we built policy around it.

Parts of the Mat-Su are dealing with the same reality. This borough is huge. Trooper response in some areas is not minutes, it is tens of minutes. Even school resource officers, where we have them, are minutes away from the room where it is happening. A school attack does not last that long. Parkland was over in a few minutes. Uvalde dragged on, and we all saw how that went. The question is simple. Do you want the first armed response already in the building, or do you want to wait and hope it gets there in time.

Everything about a mass shooter depends on time and control. They walk in expecting no resistance. That expectation is what drives the body count. The second that changes, everything changes. If they have to think about someone shooting back, they slow down. They hesitate. Sometimes they quit. You do not have to chase them across a parking lot. You just have to break their plan.

That is exactly what the FFDO program did. Nobody knows which pilot is armed. Nobody knows if the cockpit door opens to a gun. That uncertainty is the deterrent. In more than twenty years, the disasters people predicted never showed up. No shootouts in the cabin. No guns taken and used against passengers. It worked because it changed the math for the bad guy.

The Mat-Su policy does the same thing. It keeps identities confidential. Nobody walking into a school knows who is armed or where they are. That forces a bad actor to assume the worst. That is the point.

Look at how it is built. Volunteer only. Real vetting, background checks, psychological screening, drug and alcohol standards. Ongoing training, not just at the range but scenario work and medical response. Limited scope. No police powers. Carry only where authorized. Control of the firearm at all times. That is not random. That is structure.

There is also real personal cost. In the FFDO program, the government provided the firearm, ammunition, and training, but pilots paid their own way to get there and stay current. It cost time and money. The people who did it were serious, or they did not stick with it. Same thing here. Staff would pay for their own equipment and training, with some offset. That is not a bug. That is a filter.

Alaska law already allows this with approval from the chief school administrator. Senator Shelley Hughes ran the Safe Schools Act, SB 173, in the 33rd Legislature, which would have made that authorization more standard across the state. The bill did not get out of committee. That does not mean the idea went away. It means local governments step in and handle their own responsibility. That is exactly what is happening here.

And this is not some backwoods Alaska outlier. States all over the country allow trained staff to carry in schools in one form or another. You can argue about it, but you cannot call it extreme. It is already being done.

Unlike the FFDO program, a volunteer teacher under this policy is not a badged and sworn federal officer. They have less authority, not more. They are not chasing suspects or making arrests. They are there for one reason, to stop a threat if it shows up. Training is another place to tighten up. If it were me, I would make sure initial training is rock solid before anyone carries.

For years, every person who boards a commercial flight has trusted that if something goes wrong, it will be handled right there, right now. That trust has held. Not by accident, but because we put capability on board.

This is the same decision. Do we put that capability inside the building, or do we leave it outside and hope it gets there in time.

I carried a gun in the cockpit as an FFDO. Nothing fell apart. The country kept moving. Mat-Su will be just fine.

Representative Kevin McCabe serves in the Alaska House for District 30.