For this passion blog, I want to discuss an issue in education that is very controversial and there has been a lot of media attention dedicated to it in the past year or so. Since the dramatic increase of violence in schools, more specifically the increase of the number of school shootings, there have been many different and sometimes radical ideas as to what policies should be put in place in order to combat this problem that plagues our society today. One of the ways proposed to deal with this is to arm teachers. Some states have already done this and some are in complete opposition to the idea. Overall, it has polarized educators in America. It begs the question is arming teachers a good idea?
First, we have to examine the culture around violence in school. In the early 1990’s, the Gun Free School Zones Act was passed which was supposed to put an end to all school violence by prohibiting them from all public schools. This may seem like exactly what would solve all gun violence at schools, but that is simply not the case as there are quite a few exceptions to the law. If you have concealed carry or the proper licensing to carry a firearm in a school zone than you are still allowed to do so. Also, if the gun is in a container or your motorized vehicle then it is still allowed. This law does keep a lot of guns away from school but the problem is that it still allows a lot. Also, most of the guns used during school shootings are either not legally obtained or they belong to a parent of the student. Either way, they are illegally obtained and the Gun Free School Zones Act does nothing in order to stop those guns which actually get into schools.
The number of school shootings has risen dramatically in the last few years to the point where there is at least one per week. Many legislatures think that they should fight fire with fire by arming teachers. I personally believe that this would be a major mistake if teachers continue to be armed in schools. All this would be doing is bringing even more guns into school which is the opposite of what we want. Also, the likelihood of the teacher or a student accidentally harming someone with one of the guns is greater than them actually being able to intervene during a possible school shooter scenario. Additionally, it would not improve the overall safety and culture of schools as the students would know that each classroom has a gun in it. The whole point of the gun laws should be to have students feel and be safe from violence. Arming teachers wouldn’t do either of these things and is not a good idea in my opinion.