{"id":50806,"date":"2020-02-05T09:18:23","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T15:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/?p=50806"},"modified":"2025-05-07T12:27:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T18:27:31","slug":"should-teachers-be-armed-with-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/?p=50806","title":{"rendered":"Should Teachers Be Armed With Guns?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Searcy High School stated that they believe they don’t need teachers to be armed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SEARCY, AR. (LP) \u2014 The idea of arming teachers\u2014or loosening state restrictions to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns into schools\u2014is often circulated after school attacks. It gained attention after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 and was revived in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.\u00a0But putting guns in the hands of school staff is often met with resistance from educators, who say they don’t want the responsibility of carrying and securing a firearm on top of their already demanding jobs. Searcy High School gave a statement stating, “Searcy School District believes that teachers are trained to teach. Putting the large responsibility of employees carrying a concealed weapon on school campus is one that we do not feel would be advantageous to our school community. We have a very close working relationship with our local law enforcement and they are regularly present in our buildings. Additionally, we have school resource officers at each campus daily. Finally, all Searcy School District employees have been trained in how to respond in the case of an active shooter investigation. We feel that the safety plans we have in place and the security measures we take daily are the best ways to ensure our students and staff members have the best protection.”<\/p>\n

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Some students say they would feel safer, while other don’t think so. Courtesy to Concordia University for the picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many teachers believe that arming themselves\u2014and their peers\u2014would make schools less safe.\u00a0President Trump, for one. At a speech just after the Parkland shooting, he argued that armed teachers with training and experience who “love their students” might be better able to protect them in an active shooting scenario than an armed police officer. A student from High School who would wanted to stay anonymous, “I think guns wouldn’t be safe because you never know what could happen with them.”\u00a0 There\u2019s also the thorny question of liability: Who would be responsible if something went wrong? Many things could go wrong, experts say\u2014a student could find or steal a teacher’s firearm, the weapon could accidentally discharge, or a teacher could shoot an innocent bystander during an active-shooter situation.<\/p>\n

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Arming teachers does have disadvantages, such as how much it would cost arming each teacher. Courtesy to New York Post.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Arming staff could get expensive. A high-quality, name-brand, semi-automatic pistol or other type of handgun could run anywhere from $500 to $1,200. And the idea of diverting already stretched resources to these and other costs such as firearms training could be a very tough sell.\u00a0There\u2019s also concern that training and arming teachers is expensive and could take funding away from other academic or school safety resources. Marissa from Searcy High said, “I think it would be great for teachers to be armed, but how would the school pay?” Access to a firearm, irrespective of age,\u00a0triples the risk of death by suicide\u00a0and\u00a0doubles the risk of death by homicide.\u00a0There have been several incidents of guns intentionally or unintentionally discharged on school grounds by school staff. This includes both intentional and unintentional shootings such as a janitor who killed two of his colleagues at a performing arts school in Florida.\u00a0A Spanish teacher who was fired and then returned to school with an AK-47 in a guitar case that he used to kill the school headmaster and then himself.\u00a0Firearm suicides by faculty staff at schools or intentional incidents by both school resource officers in schools and teachers who accidentally discharged their firearms.\u00a0There\u2019s also concern that training and arming teachers is expensive and could take funding away from other academic or school safety resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEARCY, AR. (LP) \u2014 The idea of arming teachers\u2014or loosening state restrictions to allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns into schools\u2014is often circulated after school attacks. It gained attention after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 and was revived in the wake of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-about","category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50806"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50868,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50806\/revisions\/50868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searcylionpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}