A Gun Or a Piece of Chalk: Is Giving Weapons To Teachers The Answer? It seems as though every time someone turns on the television or reads the newspaper, there is a new report of a school shooting in America. In light of these recent shootings, there has been an influx of public uproar about the things the country needs to do to prevent the massacres from happening again. Discussions about the best way to prevent future incidents have gone past simple public debate and have headed to congress in order to change the way things are done nationwide. The discussions have ranged from whether or not to place metal detectors in the front of every entrance to whether teachers should carry weapons on them in order to have someone to defend the students. While there may be financial drawbacks to a metal detector or more guards at a school, those things do not have many obvious side effects. Thus, because of the possible repercussions, the big question in the situation is whether or not teachers should have guns in the classroom. If guns are to be put in the hands of teachers, there would be an unprecedented amount of problems that would come from this solution which is much too rash and not justified. Since the beginning of this year, there have been 47 school shootings in the United States. Couple that with the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and the Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon earlier this year, the public has turned to consider what can be done about these shootings and ways to prevent it (Mosendz). Contrary to most beliefs, school shootings are not on the rise. Even though they are heard and replayed on the news often, the number of shootings in schools has remained steady from year to year (Lawrence). The problem with this is that the reactions to parents are generally always to protect their children from being a victim of a terrible fate. An article written by Julia Lawrence, states that of the 50 million children who went to school this year, only 17 of them were killed because of gun violence. Even a bigger indication of how rare these events are, the article reads, “the chances of a student being harmed or killed over the course of a school day is less than one in a million” (Lawrence). However, the general overreaction in light of these recent events means that people who have children will act on that reaction rather than the correct thing to do. Some people believe that the correct response to these tragedies is to arm the teachers who populate the school. The general consensus is that by arming a few teachers randomly in the school who volunteer to carry, then if an armed gunman comes into the school, there is someone in the school who can ward them off. Programs designed to teach them how to use these weapons are generally implemented into districts where guns are allowed to be carried. However, with not much legislation on carrying guns, there are no standards as to how many hours are necessary or even the material covered (Buck, Drake, Yurvati, 2013, pg. 3-4). Thus, as long as teachers have a concealed carry license and approval from the board, there is no way of knowing how much training they really possess. Many schools who now allow teachers to possess weapons, opt for it because police may be too far away or they do not have the funds to hire an active officer or private security guard. The problem with arming teachers is that the training given to these teachers is no more than the training given to a normal citizen obtaining a concealed carry license (Grossman and Toppo). The main problem with this is that these teachers are no more trained to handle these situations than any person with a gun permit. These teachers are trusted in the schools to protect the children without any true situational training. Police officers, when responding to situations, have an average of 761 hours spent in the classroom and most also have an additional field component which is an average of 453 hours backing them up when they go into situations (Bureau of Justice Statistics). Handing a teacher a weapon is no substitute for a police officer who has been trained and has experience dealing with the stresses of these situations. Placing a gun in a school which does not need to be there, poses a threat beyond the justification of protecting the students. When a gun is present, there is an added element of tension to any situation. When a gun is in the hands of a person, they have a bigger inclination to turn a low level incident into something much worse (Buck, Drake, Yurvati, 2013, pg. 3-4). In a Baltimore public school, a teacher and student got into a brawl in the hallway. This fight happened after the student threw something at the teacher during a test. The teacher screamed “‘I’ll kill you in here’” (Jones). The teacher ended up getting on leave and the student charged with assault, which could have ended much worse than it did. If the teacher did carry a weapon, there would have been a much bigger chance that it would have been pulled out and used by either side. The absence of a weapon ensured that there was no one injured past what can be done with a person’s hands. One big element of adding guns to schools is accidents. Accidents happen in every aspect of life even when guns are not in the situation. Thus, when you add firearms to any situation, the element of danger greatly increases greatly. If a teacher who possesses a firearm accidentally leaves it on their table or somewhere by their desk and a elementary school child picks up the gun, there are so many things that can go wrong. There is also an amount of liability that plays into the situation if a student were to accidentally pick up a weapon left unattended and fire it in any direction. The other aspect of accidents that needs to be considered is what happens if a teacher attempts to protect the classroom during a lockdown and shoots a student or another teacher who tries to get into the room. A teacher, who does not have experience in stressful situations, is much more vulnerable to committing an accident than a police officer. While there have been many recent tragedies in schools where innocent children were killed, arming a teacher who is not prepared for such stressful situations does not prevent anything. Rather, arming teacher brings an unnecessary gun into the classroom that poses a threat to students and does not solve anything. The training that most of the armed teachers receive is unregulated and even so, it is generally a simple civilian gun safety course which does not give them the training necessary to protect students. Arming teachers is not the answer to protecting the nation’s students from people who intend to harm their students. Unless someone trained to handle these situations holds the weapon, placing guns in schools offers too much opportunity for bad things to happen even without someone trying to harm the students. By arming teachers, we are putting children in the face of danger rather than protecting them from it.

Works Cited
Buck, S., Drake, D., Yurvati, E. (2013). Teachers With Guns: Firearms Discharges By Schoolteachers, 1980-2012. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Homicide Research. Retrieved from http://homicidecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Teachers-with-Guns-RESEARCH-REPORT-FINAL.pdf
Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2015. Law Enforcement Training Academies. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=77
Grossman, C., & Toppo, G. (2012, December 28). Trainer for gun-toting teachers: 'Make it hard to kill a kid.’ USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/27/gun-classes-teachers-utah-ohio- shooting/1793773/
Jones, A. (2014). Teacher Threatens Student In Hallway Brawl: “I’ll Kill You In Here”. http://gawker.com/teacher-threatens-student-in-hallway-brawl-ill-kill-y-1647068400
Lawrence, J. (2012, December). Although School Shootings Are Rare, Stats Don’t Calm Fears. Education News.
Mosendz, P. (2015). Two Gun Incidents Become the 46th and 47th Shootings at Schools This Year. Retrieved by http://www.newsweek.com/northern-arizona-university-shooting-becomes-46th-school-year-381378