The US has had far too many school shootings and, sadly, it seems these tragic events will continue occurring. Every time one occurs, you get various people saying more needs to be done re gun control and ownership, but then a few weeks or months later, there’s another shooting and the same rhetoric gets repeated ad nauseam. One suggestion that has been made is to have armed teachers in schools. It’s a controversial proposal, for sure, but here’s a defence of it.
To put it simply, schools are easy targets. The typical school has no guns, so a shooter is able to keep on shooting with very little resistance. The people inside school buildings are defenceless; they’re sitting ducks. The reason the number of fatalities and casualties for school shootings is often so alarmingly high is because there’s no one there who’s capable of effectively stopping the shooter until the police arrive – the other key reason, obviously, is that the shooter is downright evil.
So what’s good about the proposal to have armed teachers? Simply put, it’s that there would be someone on site who, at the time of a shooting, could in theory shoot back and prevent the shooter from killing large numbers of people. If it’s publicly known that a school has an armed member of staff on site, that may well deter a potential mass shooter from going there and committing a mass shooting. It’s essentially fighting violence with violence and there are all sorts of arguments against having school staff members armed, but what other solution could there be? Surely there has to be someone who’s capable of stopping the shooter? Having an armed teacher could well save lives, after all, even if it means there being more guns and more people handling guns.
In an ideal world, there would be no guns. But, this isn’t the ideal world. People, whether they like it or not, have to accept that guns are important for many, many Americans thanks to the Second Amendment granting them the right to bear arms. Most gun owners are fully responsible and never harm others, but so long as there are guns, there will always be a few evil people who go on to use their gun to kill others.
Guns are a hotly contested and quite complicated issue – having armed teachers may not be the best, most effective proposal to prevent school shootings or reduce fatalities, but what else can be done? Sure, there’s legislation, but even someone who acquires a gun legally and passes all the checks could one day go on to carry out a school shooting. Regulation can only go so far: guns can always end up in the wrong hands. While improved regulation is always needed, something obviously needs to be done to give those involved in mass shootings a chance. For school shootings, having armed teachers may be the best solution right now, at least.
