Eileen Flynn, Story Editor
@eileen_courant
In the wake of several school shootings, the idea of arming teachers has spurred debates surrounding the pros and cons of teachers carrying firearms. States around the country are making the decision on whether or not to allow their school faculty to carry firearms. Members of NCHS commented on the issue.
TRAINING
Proposals to arm teachers require training range
from minimal to extensive training and monitoring
“Considering how much training police officers get with a firearm, and that we still make mistakes sometimes, I think it’s dangerous to arming any type of teachers with minimal training. As a police department, we have to qualify with our weapons 4 times a year, so I think that there would have to be some kind of standards in order to maintain their training.”
– Geoffrey Lambert, Student Resource Officer
“As ex-military, I’ve had training with a wide range of firearms, and I know that there’s a big difference between asking someone to operate a firearm in military terrain and asking them to perform threat-detection in school. There’s much more to carrying a weapon than knowing what end to point and what to pull- threat detection’s very difficult.”
– Matthew Quinn, English Teacher
GUN CULTURE
Looking at the percentage of the population in favor of armed teachers, demographic plays a key role in the opinions due to the difference in gun culture around America.
“This is a very big country and I think that we are really seeing that now because of the sectionalism occurring. Different sections of the country have different views on having guns. I think that there is more of a gun-accepting culture in rural areas where they’re a bigger part of the people’s lives.”
– Richard Webb, History Teacher
SCHOOL CLIMATE
Many people are concerned with the message that having armed teachers sends; how it would affect students and if guns belong in a teaching environment.
“I would not feel safe at school if any of my teachers had guns because a lot of mass shooters are students, and if the teachers had guns, it would make them far more accessible to the students.”
– Emily Shizari, Junior
“I think that our school safety is pretty good now, but having teachers armed in case of an emergency would definitely make me feel safer. We have multiple doors throughout the school where a school shooter could enter and only one person in the school should be armed, so I would be comforted by having more people in the building armed and able to defend us.”
– Drew Jones, Junior
MONEY
The arming and training of teachers raises the question of where the money to fund this would come from.
“I think the cost to arm the teachers is too high, and that money could be used to effectively prevent gun violence.”
– Emily Shizari
“Training has to be current, so unless I’m constantly using the gun in my job, I need to be at the range on a regular basis, training to keep my proficiency. Who’s paying for that training? Does the time that all the training takes come out of school hours and are the teachers paid?”
– Paul Reid, Physics Teacher
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Having teachers react in the case of a school shooting raises questions about benefits of shortened reaction time and as miscommunications with Law Enforcement.
“Usually, it takes 5-7 minutes for a police force to come to an emergency when they are called. The average school shooting only lasts 2-3 minutes, so I think that if the teachers were armed and could stop the shooter.”
– Drew Jones
“In the event of a shooting in the school, how do I identify myself? A police officer runs into the school after a shooting and sees an adult standing with a weapon. How does he know that I am an armed teacher?”
– Paul Reid
