TEACHERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO CARRY GUNS

Teachers should not be allowed to carry guns

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Every parent worry is their children's safety. The increase of violence in schools has
made parents doubt whether their children are safe. The shootings that took place in Sandy Hook
Elementary school and Columbine made the concerned that is parents, administrators and
educators take action towards their children's safety. Positive reactions to those shooting are not
good enough when children's lives are involved. The administration decided to come up with
alternative ways to help ensure there is protection for their students. (Hartocollis,,etl,,2018). The
idea of having teachers carry weapons has been a debate for quite some time. This paper
discusses the effects of teachers carrying guns and the disadvantages that come with it.

Companies that offer insurance have started to cancel policies with schools that have
teachers who are armed because of the high risk they are putting themselves in. Parents and
administrators have worries about the idea of careless teachers who leave their guns and students
getting their hands on one of the teachers' guns injuring themselves or other students. Some
teachers may also resolve to use guns amongst themselves during a dispute since they are human
beings and are subject to negative emotions. During a disagreement, a teacher may pull out the
gun and shoot the other. In an attempt to solve the situation, other teachers may pull out their
guns and hit the other, leading to more deaths. Because this idea seems quite extreme, other
alternatives are less dramatic and more optimistic that should be considered, such as having
armed security guards in schools rather than armed teachers.

Also, teachers are not trained professionally when it comes to the handling of guns. There
is no training that a teacher receives in college regarding firearms, especially in dangerous
situations. Allowing teachers to have guns will mean making them victims of the shooting. In
such cases, they would tend to help or hide students to safety rather than shoot back. The attempt
to fire back will be a misdirected effort that will be utilized appropriately to save themselves and
others in the school. Therefore, providing security in school should not come from teachers;
instead, they should focus on their job, teaching.

Guns in schools are proportional to the number of deaths. That is, the more guns, the
more deaths recorded. In times of shooting, multiple bullets would be in the air resulting in many
deaths. Bullets shot at the gunmen will hit innocent people. Such situations are uncontrollable
when all the teachers will be shooting simultaneously as the gunmen because there are likely to
be more teachers, students, and other people around the school falling victims of bullets from the
gunmen. There will be many deaths before the situation gets calm. Teachers should, therefore,
not be allowed to carry guns to school.

Teachers may develop mental illness. This will mean that they are unfit to carry guns
with them. Most of the mental illnesses among the teachers may be unnoticeable until an incident
occurs. They may take their weapons and start shooting anyone resulting in multiple deaths that
may be controlled. For the case of teachers with mental should not be allowed to carry guns
around the school as their mental status is unpredictable. It is difficult to predict whether one is
stable or not, and for that reason, they should not be allowed to carry guns.
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Armed teachers risk students’ and other teachers’ safety, as clearly shown by several
noticeable events. A teacher with a gun attempted suicide in a high school in Dalton. Another
teacher injured a student after a gun missed the target during a gun safety class. Even a school
shooting hero for using his weapon to stop a shooter agrees that it is a safety risk. He hesitated to
shoot the shooter, claiming he "did not fire out of fear of hitting someone in the background" He
knew how to handle a gun. Still, a less experienced armed teacher would have shot anyway, and
they would have risked hurting another innocent person.

In conclusion, teachers should not be allowed to have guns in school as it poses more
harm than good. Trained security guards should be allowed rather than a teacher whose work
should only be teaching.

References

1. Hartocollis, Anemona, and Fortin, Jacey. “Should Teachers Carry Guns? Are Metal
Detectors Helpful? What Experts Say.” The New York Times, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2018.