The U.S. is like a butterfly; from far away it looks pretty, like a mythical creature come to life. When close, it becomes ugly and twisted in ways some didn’t realize. One of the ways the U.S. is twisted is with schools. The U.S. is the only country that must worry about violence in their schools. So that brings up the question U.S Citizens have debated about: Should our school teachers carry guns?
Violence in schools is an issue in the U.S., and it only gets worse as time passes. This epidemic is only in the U.S., and the rate of these incidents keeps increasing. In fact, according to the National Library of Medicine, by December of 2021 there had been thirty-four school shootings causing fifty-four injured people, three staff members dead, and eleven children dead. In other countries that number is unimaginable, with CNN saying that the number of school shootings in other countries combined is still 57 times less than in the U.S. Despite these things being almost unheard of in other countries, the U.S. still doesn’t have a solution to this problem. Although many different solutions have come up, none have been chosen yet.
One of the ideas that commonly comes up is whether teachers should be armed with guns in the classroom. While some teachers are open to this, many teachers are against it.
“My job is to educate, not risk my own life,” Says Barbra Gutierrez, a first-grade elementary school teacher, “If I wanted to carry a weapon, I would have chosen a different job.”
Very few teachers feel that carrying guns is the correct move. According to Kelly Drane, a writer for Giffords.org, 80% of teachers feel that carrying guns in a classroom is not a good idea. Along with 70% of students and parents feeling the same way as those teachers.
On the other hand, some parents have said that they want their child protected. Those parents think that if teachers have guns, then a teacher would be able to better defend the class against a shooter.
But what’s the reality of this? What would happen if teachers carried guns at schools. According to Michael Gold, a writer from the NYTimes, more children would have access to guns, and more guns would be mishandled. With those two factors, the number of school shooting will increase, rather than diminishing the problem.
Increasing the number of teachers, and therefore children, who have access to guns will never be the answer. All it would do is give children another reason to be scared. What we should be doing instead is taking guns away from schools completely.
Will not allowing teachers to carry guns diminish the U.S. school gun violence issue completely? No, but we must start somewhere. So, with each problem we crave a solution . . . but that solution should not hurt more than the original problem.
“School is supposed to be a safe place to go, to learn.” Gutierrez states, “It should not be a place where kids and adults alike are scared to walk into.”
