Guns in Our Schools There has been a lot of debate in the last few years regarding gun laws and schools. Students have become more violent toward one another, and mentally ill individuals seem to be targeting schools and public places. The amount of school shootings continues to rise, and there are no real safety protocols in place that will protect students and teachers. The places that used to be safe for our children, have become one of the scariest places due to violence. Children are dropped off at school each day, with the plan to hide if a shooting were to take place, and I feel that preventative measures have not been taken to keep students safe. Our classrooms would be safer if teachers carried concealed handguns. …show more content…
There are few policies that are aimed to keep students safe from violence. If a student comes to school, and decides to take his/her anger out at school, who knows what could happen. Many other students could be caught in the middle of one person’s outrage. In 1997, an article in USA Today stated that about 10% of students over age 12 now say they have taken a gun to school (Sharp 1997.) Teachers have no way of knowing which children have guns, and which ones don’t. For most teachers their goal is to keep their students as safe as they can while the students learn. Especially in elementary schools where children are very young. No one unarmed teacher can properly protect their students if an armed shooter comes into their …show more content…
The article states, “Teachers and students should hide quietly, lock or barricade doors, and turn off lights and electrical equipment that would attract the shooter’s attention. If possible, they should provide detailed information via 911 contact to guide authorities and, then, remain quiet until a recognized voice advises that it is safe to move.” (Buerger and Bueger, 2010) It is nearly impossible for a teacher to hide 20 or more children in a classroom, quietly until the police arrive to detain the suspect. Bueger also states that, “Unless a situation begins with the shooter confronting a resource officer, the first reaction will come from individuals whose professional orientation is far from armed conflict.” This protocol leaves a lot of time for the shooter to kill. The event of a shooter having his first encounter with a resource officer is very slim. Most schools do not have a resource officer on campus at all. That being said, it is primarily left to the teachers and faculty to handle potential active shootings. After the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut back in 2012. A 20 year old shooter carried out a massacre that would took the lives of 20 students and 6 teachers, within 11 minutes at an elementary school (West, 2013.) Teachers across the U.S. have stood up and expressed their want to learn about firearms to
Michael Eisinger an eighth grade science teacher says, "If a gunman is going to cause violence in a school, they are going to have the element of surprise," "My guess is that they would still be able to shoot teachers, students or whoever else they wanted before some sort of coherent response materialized. (Huffington Post) Arming teachers isn’t going to solve the problem. We still will end up with deaths in schools. The gunman may decide to take the professors gun as well, which will result in the enemy having another harmful weapon.
One of the biggest debates in education is how to respond to gun violence in schools. According to BBC, “There were 64 school shootings in 2015” (BBC). One response to the rise in gun violence in schools is to arm teachers. Even our President has mentioned “giving a bonus” (Davis 2) to teachers that The fact that the idea of arming teachers is even being discussed is disappointing. Bringing more guns into a school is not the answer to gun violence. Most people that defend the idea that guns will “help” keep schools safe have basically three points: (1) teachers will be trained in gun safety, (2) it helps deter potential school shooters, and (3) it will make the students feel more safe. Even though there is some truth to those points, I think that the cons of arming teachers vastly outweigh the pros of arming teachers.
In America there is 89 firearms per 100 people (Moore) so it is safe to say most people will come in contact with a firearm in their life time. But when you do will you know how to handle the situation? Guns can be deadly when abused and used incorrectly. There is a way to reduce the unnecessary deaths. Firearm safety is the important piece in reducing the deaths and firearm abuse and it should be made mandatory in schools.
Everyone knows that parents’ first worry is the safety of their children. With the increase of violence in schools, parents have started to wonder if their children are really safe in the school setting. Shootings like Sandy Hook and Columbine left parents, administrators, and educators feeling the need to be proactive towards children’s safety. Reacting to situations like these is not good enough when children’s lives are on the line. Administration has started to brainstorm different ways to help insure the protection of their students. The idea of having teachers carry concealed weapons has been on the front burner for quite some time. As a result of this extreme idea, insurance companies have started to increase or even cancel policies with schools that have armed teachers because of the high risk they are putting themselves at. Parents and administrators also worry about the idea of children getting their hands on one of the teachers’ weapons and injuring themselves or other students. Because this idea seems quite extreme, I believe there are other alternatives that are less dramatic and more positively out looked, such as having armed security guards in schools.
... a high school student, I don’t take much stock in the safety codes and drills in place to keep students safe in the event of a shooting. I would feel much safer knowing my teacher has the ability to protect the class, rather than hide and lock the door. An educator is responsible for the students in their class. They are responsible for their education and their safety while the children are in their classroom. The safety of fifteen or more students would be much more easily secured by one person if that person was armed. Promoting teachers to arm themselves also prevents school shootings; criminals don’t attack a victim that can fight back. At least 60% of school attacks would be prevented with an armed faculty warning sign. School faculty members should be armed to secure the safety of the countries students, and in hand prevent the majority of potential shootings.
In “Vulnerable Schools Need Protection: Guns, Training For Teachers may be the answer”, published in a 2008 edition of the Chicago Tribune, David McGrath argues that some teachers should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon for protection. First, McGrath states that if a random psychotic gunman were searching for someplace to attack, his classroom would make an easy target. He feels that if he was trained and armed, his class would not be trapped without a chance of survival because he would be able to defend against the gunman. Sec...
School shootings are still happening and we have to put a stop to it. We need to have these teachers prepared and ready to fight. Students to deserve to have their lives out to rest knowing something could have been done that’s why we need to have these teachers armed. This is a cold world if someone enters a school with a weapon teachers need to have their weapon ready too for the sack of their children. A school is a fun place to learn but to also keep safe. This is why teachers should be armed.
Although most security measures passively make schools safer, it is not nearly enough to prevent an individual who intends on creating mass violence from completing his or her task. State representatives, national organizations, school staff, and parents need to come together to figure out the most reliable ways to prevent an active shooter situation from occurring in their schools. One solution that has been active is many schools have partnered with local law enforcement agencies to provide a police officers to patrol school grounds....
Countless individuals across the world are fighting for: freedom, religious convictions and more commonly for their children future. The devastating attack that had happened in Sandy Brook Elementary School in America that led to few deaths and injuries of youths. Which makes individuals question is educational institutes even a safe place for children. Additionally, there are more shootings in America compared to other nations as Gopink states “ United States has more gun violence than other countries because we have more guns and are willing to sell them to madmen who want to kill people.”(Gopinak, 2007, p. 458 ). This demonstrates that United States is just not inclined to take any action on gun control which is leading to deaths of children and adults. Some individuals believe handguns are not needed in American 's society. Then those who oppose gun control argue guns are a necessity to: hunting in the wild, self-defense, and it is part of the American culture. Furthermore, gun violence is having a vast impact on loved ones; losing a family member can have enormous affect socially, physical and mentally.
Throughout the years of education, kids go to school to get an education, to hang with friends, to get excise, and many other things. America should have armed officers in in public schools. Since kids are spending a majority of their time throughout the day and year at school, they should feel safe in that environment. That can soon change with school security falling behind with this current growth of school shooting. Schools shootings have begun occurring more often in the United States from elementary schools all the way up to colleges. How should school systems fix this problem? One solution that could be the most effective is having multiple armed officers in schools. Let’s begin with some major school shootings that were lacking armed officers, when the resource officer successfully stopped a potential shooting, and reasons why we should have an armed officer.
Gun violence in schools is a very serious problem in America. More and more shootings are occurring, and no matter what has been done to try to prevent these shootings they still occur. The current methods being utilized to prevent gun violence in schools are not very successful, because school shootings are still occurring. To better prevent gun violence in schools and in general the United States must reinforce gun knowledge, security, and the laws that are already in place.
Teachers play a very important role in our kid’s lives on a daily basis. Not only are they there as educators, but they are also there as protectors as well, especially for our younger students. They are not only there to watch over them and make sure that they get home safely, but they are there to protect them from any harm, including a gunman. If a gunman were to enter the school and some if not all of the teachers were licensed to carry, he could be stopped before harming or even killing several people, including our children.
Should teachers have the right to hold firearms in schools? This has been a very controversial topic that people in America have been debating over since the massacre of Columbine High School. Many people believe that giving teachers guns will help prevent school shootings because they can take action and save student lives. Others believe that giving guns to teachers is unsafe and can cause accidents to happen where they make wrong judgement or they misplace their guns and it falls into the wrong hands. Teachers should not have the right to carry firearms because there are too many risk factors that can take place.
That is why Rebekah Elliott’s article “The Real School Safety Debate: Why Legislative Responses Should Focus on Schools and Not on Guns” would be valuable to include. Elliot writes that to properly provide safety into schools is to put more funding into higher security and individual school safety programs. Like many writers, she agrees that the Sandy Hook incident shifted America’s views on the second amendment but she believes that having armed teachers could be a safety risk in itself. Her argument is that although it would be more cost efficient to arm teachers than to hire more security, it could increase the liability for negligence if there was a result in injuring a student (2015
On the side if teachers were to carry guns students and parents may be more scared. “When violent force is upheld as safety, fear and silence creep in”(Corbett huffington post). “Kids get their hands on guns, and they know how to use them”( Corbett huffington post). “I have a patient who recalls his silent car rides with his father who kept two guns under the driver’s seat. Silently the boy watched, on guard, even though nothing ever happened. But then again nothing was ever