RSWC #222 Ed Monk

Riding Shotgun With Charlie

#222

Ed Monk

Last Resort Firearm Training

 

Ed Monk is a name I’ve heard several times over the years. In October 2024, Matt Mallory and I did a live show with Ed and I was able to talk him into letting me drive him around Boston. Last fall, I had a chance to film a show with him before he was presenting at a conference for law enforcement officers. His area of expertise is analyzing the aftermath of school shootings. As a teacher for over 3 decades, this is a topic that hits home for me. 

 

Monk grew up in Arkansas with a family with firearms, mostly for hunting. Around 1999, he connected with Jim Higginbothom who taught Ed that there’s a whole new world with defensive gun fighting and shooting. His training resume is beyond impressive. He’s taken classes at Front Sight, Tactical Defense Institute, and Rangemaster with Tom Givens. He also had training in the Army, where he spent 24 years. He’s been teaching for about 15 years. His brother built a range on the family property. Their range went from 3 pistol bays, to another bay that was covered from the weather. Then his brother became “terminally ill with long range shooting” and added a 480 yard range, too. And they have a 50 yard range that holds 15 people. 

 

Just after finishing his time in Iraq, he got a job teaching at a high school, where he taught for 4 years. Going from a profession that only dealt with deadly violence to one that avoids it was a difficult change. During some professional development, he realized that the school was prepared and didn’t know how to prepare for a school shooter. The school’s plan was to gather all the students and put them in one area, thus making it easier for the shooter to hit more targets. With the school's staff not knowing how to prepare and deal with violence, they thought this was an acceptable answer. But Ed knew it wasn’t. That put him on the path to study school shootings and how they’re committed. 

 

Ed has done the work and crunched the numbers. He’s realized that it becomes a math problem of sorts. The longer it takes to get someone who is prepared and ready to deal with the shooter, the higher the victim count goes. Locking the doors and hiding under the desks works well every day the shooter doesn’t show up. 

 

There are things that can be done. He suggests things like painting the hallways in different colors. Instead of having the art wing, the police can go to the green hallway. Elementary schools can also put barriers up on the playgrounds, ones that can be filled with sand or water. They can even have ballistic tables in the lunchroom. All things that would slow someone down who is committing a heinous crime. 

 

When it comes to stopping a shooter, the time it takes to respond matters, and relates to the number of victims. Ed says that schools don’t need everyone to carry but they need some people who are willing to step up and stop the carnage. But that person also needs to be at the school, where the action is taking place. Not several minutes away or even on the other side of the school. 

 

We have a treat in this episode. One of my friends, Mark Lindblom, aka The Bay State King of GLOCKS (BSKOG as we call him), calls in with a question for Ed.Mark has been talking to me about Ed and several other trainers. And he turned me on to Ed’s series on the Active Self Protection app. 

 

Ed offers classes and seminars all around the country. He can bring his program to your school as well. You can find where he’s teaching and presenting on his Facebook page. If you can get him to come to your district, that would be very beneficial to your community. He also offers training for churches. 

 

In August 2025, at his home range, he is hosting Hero’s Conference. You’ll be able to hear from heroes who stopped active shooters. People like Jack Wilson, Greg Stevens, Stephen Willeford, and Pastor David George. 

Favorite quotes:

“Then plopped into a public teaching profession, where we don’t discuss violence at all.”

“The locking the doors and hiding under the desks works very, very well the shooter doesn’t show up.”

“They like putting stuff in the plans that’s easy to type, that’s easy to drill, that’s not controversial, that doesn’t trigger anybody.”

“The longer we let him shoot us, the more of us get shot. Or the sooner we stop him, the fewer of us get shot.”

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