Isabella McAllister: Should Teachers Be Armed with Guns in School?

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Photo by Noriko Kudo

Isabella McAllister, Newspaper Editor-In-Chief

Read the opposing side: https://theroarhhs.com/3086/uncategorized/emily-shipman-sh…h-guns-in-school/

  School shootings. They are something the world has come to know very well in the past decade. There have been efforts in finding solutions to solve the epidemic of school shootings, but the ones that have been found are more dangerous and life-threatening to the population of students and teachers.

    By arming teachers with guns, we are putting our students at more of a risk. Introducing things that have not been known to the normal school day will frighten and make kids feel even more unsafe at school than they already do. Personally, I would never feel safe walking around an environment that is surrounded by firearms and adults who are barely certified.

    “The only way a gun might be useful in a school shooting situation would be if it were easily accessible,” Alexis Buncich from The Pitt News said. “But allowing teachers immediate access to weapons creates a major safety risk, with students potentially able to access a teacher’s gun.”

    A teacher signs up to educate their students and protect them, but there is a difference in protecting students and putting their safety and lives at potentially putting their safety at more of a risk. When you give a teacher a gun, you are telling them to solve the violence with more violence. How does that solve anything?

     “A teacher’s job as an educator is to nurture, uplift and inspire,” Tommy Chang, superintendent of Boston Public Schools, said. “The thought that teachers should be armed in order to ward off violence is utterly illogical and will result in making our students and teachers less safe.”

    Often when people are talking about the subject of arming teachers, adults are the only ones asked. Students are left out of the mix, and yet they are the ones that are most affected. Students should not fear their safety at school, and by adding a weapon to the daily routine, kids are left questioning their protection.

    There will be no solution to school shootings when you let normal people be in the hands of something so dangerous,” Brooke Edwards (10) said. “You simply cannot solve a gun problem with even more guns.”

    Just because we allow our teachers to have guns, does not mean that the school shootings are going to stop. Teachers are meant to teach with pen and paper, not gun and bullet.