There is an interesting and divisive debate going on around the country. The debate centers around arming school teachers/staff to provide extra security for students. I want to lay out some of the common excuses I hear to not arm teachers and give you some rebuttal points to them.
“Teachers have enough to worry about. They don’t need to be carrying guns too.”
This excuse is almost as ridiculous as keeping our schools “gun-free zones” in the first place. Yes, teachers go to school to teach. That’s their job. But would someone who opposes arming teachers also be opposed to them learning CPR or knowing how to use a fire extinguisher? Certainly not, but their job isn’t to save a choking child or put out a fire, right? So why would a teacher learn those things?
Simple. They love their students and want to do what they can to protect them or themselves.
Many teachers love their students just like their own kids. They want them to succeed. They want them to be safe. So, if a teacher considers their students to be just like their own kids, are opponents of armed teachers suggesting they wouldn’t also want to protect their lives in the event of a mass shooting?
“So, we are just going to arm every teacher in school?”
I haven’t heard one advocate for armed teachers suggest that every single teacher be armed, and I haven’t seen one current program advocate for such. If you don’t want to carry a gun then I don’t want you to be forced to do so. If you don’t feel comfortable with guns and you don’t want to be trained then, by all means, don’t. But, if you are a teacher that wants to be armed to defend your students or yourself, then you should be able to do so.
“Okay, but teachers haven’t gone through the training police officers have.”
No one that I know of, who supports arming teachers, is suggesting that we want them to not be trained. Every program I have seen across the country that lets teachers/staff carry has required them to go through specific training for mass shooting type situations. In fact, many of these training programs are offered FREE to the teacher so they don’t have to spend their own personal money to do it.
Even if their training isn’t as good as a SWAT Team member, is it better that they are left completely defenseless like they are now? Is the risk of death higher with armed teachers than having no one being there to fight back against a killer?
“Yeah, but, I don’t want teachers walking around like John Wayne. What if a kid grabs their gun?”
Perhaps you can show me a school that allows a teacher to carry their firearm around like John Wayne because I don’t’ know of any programs that do. The programs I have looked at require a teacher to keep their firearm locked away. Many of these programs use a fingerprint safe that only the teacher would be able to open. It would be inaccessible to students.
At the very least, no teacher is going to be open carrying. If a school were to allow a teacher to carry on their person, it would most certainly be concealed. Additionally, you have to remember that these programs keep the identity of who is authorized to carry secret. This helps prevent undue attention on the teacher.
“I don’t trust my kid’s teacher to carry a gun.”
Remember, under the programs currently being operated, not every teacher is going to carry or wants to carry a gun. And school staff, such as Principals and Vice-Principals, usually have some discretion in who is going to be able to participate in the program.
But I have a bigger question for you: If you don’t trust your teacher to exercise their natural right of self-defense, secured by the 2nd Amendment, because they aren’t stable enough to do so, why are they teaching your kids? If someone isn’t mentally capable of using a firearm for self-defense, do you want them to remain in a classroom?
“What if the teacher loses it and starts killing kids?”
This same argument is used against Campus Carry. Many who oppose Campus Carry say that students who receive bad grades will kill their teachers in a “fit of rage.” Yet, we haven’t seen that come to fruition in states with Campus Carry. In fact, I haven’t seen one story from any state where a student “lost it” over a bad grade, or any other reason, and killed a professor.
Again, if a teacher is that unstable then they shouldn’t be in your child’s school. Additionally, a law such as a “gun-free school zone” isn’t going to stop a teacher if they want to murder. Clearly, the killers in Parkland, Santa Fe, and other school shootings have not cared about the laws that we already have to prevent guns from coming onto school grounds.
“I just feel that teachers shouldn’t be armed!”
In the words of the great Ben Shapiro, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
You may not want teachers to be armed. Just understand that no matter how many laws you pass, a killer doesn’t care about those laws or your feelings. When that killer is attacking a school, there is only one thing that is going to stop them. It isn’t a sign. It isn’t a court order. It isn’t another law. It isn’t a “safe space.”
A good person with a gun is the only thing that will stop that psychotic individual at that moment when these shootings occur. Whether it is an armed police officer, school administrator, teacher, veteran, or another law-abiding citizen, that is the best chance our kids have of surviving when a killer strikes.
There have been many potential mass shootings that were stopped by good people with guns. Across the country defensive uses of firearms range from 500,000 to over 2 million, even according to the CDC.
You are your best line of security. But for children who can’t use firearms to defend themselves, let’s give them the best security we can and arm some trusted adults around them, so they can all have a fighting chance to live.
