School Shootings: Should Teachers Be Armed?

Recent shooter events in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, have galvanized the media into a renewed assault on the Second Amendment. The current administration denies they’re determined to take away Americans’ firearms. The Left is all too happy, however, to start the slide down the slippery slope that leads to total gun confiscation.

The worst incidents have involved our schools. The realization that the softest targets can be found in elementary schools has led to the most tragic consequences imaginable. The conversation being held today on gun violence has its deepest roots in the youngest victims.

A proposed solution to helping end school shootings is the arming of teachers. While they say that an armed society is a polite society, the teachers themselves are, by and large, not of the same opinion. You might be surprised at the near-unanimity of this feeling: A national survey conducted in 2019 of close to 3,000 teachers, 16 percent of which owned guns, found that more than 95 percent were against teachers having a gun in the classroom. About 6 percent felt that they would feel comfortable employing a gun to stop a school shooting.

In Texas, the site of the most recent school shooting, it’s legal for teachers to have guns and act as “school marshals.” The process involves taking a special course, undergoing a psychological exam, and paying a small fee. But in the last nine years, the state has only licensed a total of 250 marshals.

Why so few? It’s well-known that the vast majority of teachers are against guns in general; only a small percentage own a gun at all. As such, they don’t have the training to be effective in a shooter situation. Many say “I didn’t sign up for this” and would refuse to undergo such training.

They also point to liability issues that can place them at risk. If they have a gun and don’t act, they might be liable for not doing their duty. If they shoot and miss or accidentally hit a student, they might be liable. The law doesn’t provide the kind of protection to teachers that it does to law enforcement.

National Educational Association President Becky Pringle commented that “teachers need more resources, not revolvers. Of course, Ms. Pringle isn’t talking about taking guns away from the deranged; she’s talking about repealing the Second Amendment.

The other side of the political aisle puts forth improved mental health care in the U.S. as a common-sense solution. No one is against better psychological care. Government-mandated mental health screening at a certain age could be integrated effectively into primary care. Many schools already require certificates of immunization and a previous medical exam for new students. An affordable mental preventive care program could abort the emergence of many potential shooters, but that’s not all: such support could help many raise their productivity and cope with personal crises.

Better mental health care will help people who seek care, but the person needs to recognize that a problem exists and merits treatment. There are often signals apparent to friends or family prior to an event. Mass murderers, themselves, often believe that it’s the victims who have problems, not them.

There’s an old joke that says “it only takes one psychologist to change a light bulb, but the light bulb has to want to change.”  This is why friends or family members must make their voices heard.

The complex nature of proposed mental health solutions may unfairly be extended to target gun owners. Most gun owners are not killers and shouldn’t be stigmatized. The assumption that gun ownership is likely to lead to mass murder is false. Attaching such a stigma to gun owners and attaching restrictions on their freedom will cause nothing but further polarization and, possibly, violence. 

Many different suggestions have been put forth in an effort to mitigate the damage caused by active shooter events. The most viable preventive strategies for schools involve seriously increased security and highly restricted access points to buildings and classrooms. Methods that may decrease fatalities during an event include teaching the Department of Homeland Security’s “Run, Hide, Fight” triad. Important additional education includes learning basic first aid for bleeding wounds and principles of situational awareness.

Violence against society’s soft targets (no self-defense arms allowed) is likely to continue. Neither more guns in the hands of ill-prepared teachers nor fewer guns in the hands of legal law-abiding citizens are the answers.