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The Wrong Answer

Arming teachers will do more harm than good in keeping our children safe at school
Another child murdered. Another community grieving. Another school in shock. Just last
month, at a high school in Alpine, Texas, a 14-year-old girl opened fire on another student before
shooting herself. This situation is, unfortunately, not a rarity in the United States today.
According to ABC News, there was an average of one school shooting per week in 2015. In the
aftermath of these tragedies, a common response among lawmakers, school administrators, and
even parents has been to equip teachers and staff with firearms. The logic behind their idea goes
like this: In the event that a shooter enters the school, teachers and staff members can respond
quickly to the incident by using guns to defend possible victims and stop the shooter before more
lives are lost; plus, armed teachers may act as a deterrent for violent crime in schools.
Essentially, more guns equals less crime. That seems rather ironic.
And the facts show that its also untrue. According to the Journal of Police Crisis
Negotiations, the presence of armed guards is associated with higher violent crime rates in
schools. The United States has the highest gun ownership rate in the world. According to
Everytown for Gun Safety, we also have one of the highest occurrences of accidental child gun
deaths in the world. Approximately 70 percent of these deaths could have been prevented had the
weapon been properly stored. If teachers start to carry guns, it increases the risk that a child in
the school will be able to access a gun. We cannot trust that all teachers will handle and store
their guns responsibly at all times.

When it comes to arming teachers, the risks outweigh the potential benefits. Providing
adequate training to teachers is costly and takes up time and resources. Even after teachers have
been through training, factors such as simple panic or a malfunction of the gun in the event of a
school shooting make uncertain the defense that armed teachers could supposedly provide.
According to Pete Blair, executive director of Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response
Training (ALERRT), it is possible that a teacher could use a gun to effectively stop a shooter;
however, it is even more likely that the teacher would be unprepared to deal with the incident,
resulting in more deaths.
Arming teachers is not the solution to our school safety problem. Instead of frantically
hacking at the branches of this problem, we need to get to the root of it. Setting up lines of
defense in the incident that a school shooting occurs should not be the priority. We should be
exploring solutions that will help to prevent these tragic incidents in the first place. Expanding
mental health services to students and identifying those at high risk for violence must be the first
step in keeping children safe at school. More guns is not the answer, but taking action to help
students deal with their problems before they resort to violence can go a long way towards
creating a healthier- and safer- environment in school.