Student debates current state of legislation allowing teachers to carry fire arms

posted in: Opinion | 0

Conversation surrounding gun control always peaks in popularity immediately following a mass shooting. As these tragedies become more and more common, varying solutions from both sides of the political spectrum increase.

When it comes to school shootings, a possible solution from those who oppose increased gun control is to arm teachers with firearms of their own. The reasoning behind this solution is that if the teachers have a means to defend themselves, they will be able to limit the number of school shooting victims by eliminating the shooter first.

However, there are a few problems with this solution. There is first the issue of figuring out how to supply the teachers with weapons. Schools already struggle with funding and their budgets would only become more strained if they were required to purchase firearms for their staff. Even if the teachers supplied their own guns, it would still be an added expense that some staff members may not want to make.

Arming teachers also brings up the question of who would be responsible for ensuring that required gun care and licensing is up to date. Presumably school districts would be tasked to do this, but that could potentially put them at risk legally if something were to happen as a result of things not being up to code.

The school also risks liability if an accident were to occur as a result of the weapon’s presence in the classroom.

The basis for arming teachers is to give teachers the ability to eliminate shooters before significant damage can be done, but the fact is the shooter is going into the situation with the intent to kill people, whereas the teachers are not going into work every day with that in mind.

Because of this, it is likely that the staff would hesitate before engaging which could eliminate the edge that supporters of the solution claim is given by arming the teachers.

At the end of the day, it seems that arming teachers would only increase the already growing problem of school shootings. Adding more guns would likely lead to more violence, whether it be accidental or intentional.

Instead of adding firearms to a violent situation, the focus should be on preventing violent situations from happening by limiting the potential shooter’s access to weapons capable of causing such great destruction.

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