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Arming teachers with guns
Why teachers should be armed
Case studies of school shootings in america
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Armed Officers in Schools
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.
One of the most eye opening school shootings was on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Thirteen students were killed and twenty wounded in the middle of the day while attending school at Columbine High School. Two armed students opened fire just outside the building, then moved inside and gunned down more students and faculty members. This rampage lasting for just under 45 minutes. The students then turned the guns on themselves and ended their lives. The police did not show up in a reasonable time, which lead families to file lawsuits against the police department and the school. There was only one resource officer in the high school, during this time. He was located in the parking lot to watch kids drive in and out. One of the parents of the victims said, "There was no one in that school that had a gun other than the two killers, and ...
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...is “so securing your hallway or pod is how you do it” (Gumbrecht, Jamie).
Which can be having armed officers walk though halls, making sure the school is safe from any harm that could potentially happen.
Having armed officers in schools can help the safety of the students and faculty. It could possibly help stop mass shootings or lower the casualties of shootings that occur. Making schools safer should be an important topic to talk about because we want students to feel safe while learning. Schools should make sure the students feel safe going to school. Schools should study past shooting and shooting that were avoided. To further make schools safe and almost worry free. Having no officers in schools has only cause more harm and leaves schools in a vulnerable state for any kind of safety risk. Having some protect of our youth is better then having no protection.
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.
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.
The history of school shootings has shown an increase in mass school shooting. The very first known school shooting in the United States occurred on July 26, 1764 in present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania. As part of the Pontiac's Rebellion, four Lenape Native Americans entered the school house and started shooting, killing the schoolmaster Enoch Brown and about nine students. Only two students survived the massacre (“History”). Since the 1700s the United States society has changed in many ways. Schools have become more than just one room school houses and each grade has its own teacher. Furthermore, the problem of school shootings has not decreased but rather increased over the years. On the one hand, reports from the Centers for Disease Control showed that in general school violence decreased from 1992 to 200...
... 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.
It is a sad time in American history when one can easily recount recent school shootings in their own area. This ease stems from a sharp increase in the number of firearms brought into elementary and middle schools across the country, with an intense focus on the issue beginning after the shooting of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most school shooters are male, white, and often upper middle class. They are also more, often than not, under some type of mental stress that is causing them to create this type of violence in our communities. In fact, many school shooters are never suspected of doing any harm to their peers and teachers until it is much too late.
There have been many cases of school shootings in the past decade and we need to put a stop to it. Innocent lives are being taken away, students aren’t feeling safe or the desire to learn and school isn’t like it once was. Last year there was a school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary were many innocent children and teachers were killed. A teacher who worked at Sandy hook, Victoria Soto was shot and killed for hiding her students in a closet and told the gun they were in the gym just so the children can be safe and risked her life for them. In an article ‘She was a hero” by Erin Smith he explains that Soto was a hero and had saved her children and if she was armed she would ha...
School safety plans have had an increase in focus over the past decade due to the increase of televised coverage in mass school shootings. School officials relied upon the moral rationales that support aggressive street policing as they struggled to” reach the students” and make sense of the new disciplinary policies while maintaining their identities as educators (Garret, 2001). In reacting fashion, schools placed an emphasis on gun safety. As originally enacted on March 31, 1994 the Gun-Safe Schools Act (GFSA) required each state receiving Elementary and Secondary Education Act funds to have in effect a state law require local educational agencies LEAs to expel from school for a period of not less than one year a student who was determined to have brought a weapon to school (Thomas, 2006). The focus of trying to keep guns out of schools had administrators putting plans in place with little information as to what works for schools. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Educatiohttp://ed.grammarly.com/editor/content?page.paperReportKey=#n (2003) informed educators that they needed to add the possibility of terrorist attacks to the safety plans of schools knowing that this would stretch the ability of schools to meet the needs of the students and community. Reactions to school sho...
There are plenty of ways we can prevent school shootings and one of them is by adding more school security officers. If there is more security, then it would be easier for them to give a warning when there could be a pote...
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....
With all of the school shootings that have happened lately I’m sure that most parents would want their child protected at any cost. As of January 2014, there had been an average of one school shooting every other school day. What are the schools doing to protect our kids when they are away from us at school? What more can be done to protect them? We are not able to be with our kids while they are at school, but we surely want to know that if a gunman does try to enter the school, there are measures in place to protect them. Should teachers be allowed to carry a handgun while in class? In my position argument I will discuss reasons that I feel that teachers should be able to carry while in class.
The schools had also brought in school officers to have on school grounding during school hours. They feel that they need these type of secured to have their children protected. Parents feel a little say knowing that there is a police in school patrolling. In several school they have started to do searches to make sure no one is bring anything dangerous that could harm a person. This is super important to makes sure no weapons are on school grounds. Schools have also put on their policy that if any weapon is found on the person’s possession there could be serious
“Since 2013, there have been over 200 school shootings in America, an average of nearly one a week”(Everytown Research). How safe is our family members at school? Allowing teachers and staff to carry guns could lower that number. Some people may disagree with it, saying that it would be teaching students violence. School shootings would be a thing of the past if staff were armed.
Following the recent school shooting at Majority Stoneman Douglas High there has been a nationwide debate on whether or not teachers should carry lethal weapons. After doing my research I can conclude that teachers shouldn’t be able to carry guns in schools however there should be other safety precautions in place such as non-lethal weapons, SRO’s, and security measures. These ideas could be a cheaper alternative compared to arming teachers. If schools enhance safety and make it a priority within the premises it could be an affordable way to decrease the number of shootings on campus. There is no reason to go to the extent of giving teachers lethal weapons and it could cause more harm than good.
First, armed guards at schools can provide security to students so they feel safe. According to Patrick Kissane, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Resource Officers, on NY Times, “praised East Brunswick’s decision, but said that it was crucial that the police officers be able to work with teenagers. They’re there as a mentor, as a role model, and they’re building relationships,” said Mr. Kissane, who is also deputy chief of the Fort Lee Police Department. The officers will not necessarily be assigned to a specific post, but rather move in different areas, and be a visible presence, talking to students and teachers and other staff.” If police officers can build a relationship with students, they can better know what is going in the school, and they will be more familiar with any problems that arise and assure the students, teachers and other staff that they are safe.