Please don't give teachers guns

In the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, an old idea has gained new currency: Arming teachers.

For Americans seduced by the rhetoric that “all it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” giving teachers firearms makes sense. Potential shooters would take into consideration that a certain percentage of the faculty and staff are carrying and would think twice before targeting a school.

If an attacker did get inside — and mistakes in Uvalde (a door propped open, a complete breakdown of the police command structure) show how easily it can happen and how much carnage can result — then kids and teachers would not be sitting ducks. The teacher could transition from long division or phonics into law-enforcement mode and take out the intruder, to the cheers of her pupils.

But despite the comforting emotional resonance of such a scenario, giving teachers guns is a bad idea. Here’s why.

First of all, it puts more guns in schools. And if the proliferation of firearms in this country has demonstrated anything, it’s that where there are guns, there is a bigger temptation to use and misuse them. Handgun owners are much more likely to die from suicide by gun (men are eight times more likely, women are 35 times more likely), according to a Stanford research study. Accidental shootings are much more likely to happen in households with guns than in those without them.

It stands to reason, then, that the more staff members with guns, the more chances that somebody will get hurt. At the end of 2021, the Giffords Law Center released an updated report of gun accidents in schools. It included a teacher in California who mistakenly discharged his gun while teaching a class about gun safety; three students were injured, including one with ricocheted bullet fragments in his neck.

Most of the cases, based on a quick perusal, involve teachers, resource officers and visitors accidentally leaving weapons unattended, often in school restrooms. Prosaic, everyday stuff caused by complacency, but potential tragedies in the making.

Secondly, the risks involved would not be shared equally across the school population. Students of color are disciplined more often and more harshly than their European-American peers in many schools. Imagine the fear and anxiety for these black and brown students if they attended campuses where their teachers – 72% of whom, nationally, are white – carry weapons in the classroom. Given concerns about systemic racism, would these students be more likely than their peers to have weapons drawn against them when a discipline situation escalates?

Training is also an issue. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine supports a bill passed by the Ohio House last year that would lessen training requirements for teachers whose districts allow them to carry in the classroom.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Ohio teachers who are allowed to carry must complete the same training as the state’s peace officers. DeWine’s – and the bill’s – intent is to relax that standard to the same training provided to a security guard (along with “local” coursework, whatever that means).*

The accuracy of even highly trained police officers suffers in real-life situations, where they hit their targets anywhere from 30% to 50% of the time. Imagine how much worse that could be for teachers, especially in a high-pressure situation involving a classroom shooter and cowering kids, against somebody who may be a former or current student, somebody with whom they have an educational and emotional investment.

It’s that last part that is – for this full-time classroom teacher at least – one of the biggest reasons not to arm educators. Carrying a gun is inimical to a main tenet of education, which is to model compassion, civility and reasoned debate. I don’t want to carry a gun in school, and I don’t want to worry about teaching alongside somebody who is.

Maybe I’m just resentful to live in a society where, for the benefit of some people’s hobby, the rest of us have to adopt military terms like “hardening” when discussing our public spaces, practice cowering in corners and under desks, and have deep discussions about which books are the best to throw at an intruder.

The solution cannot simply be “more guns.” That’s a non-answer that benefits only gun and ammunition manufacturers and a small minority of Americans willing to sacrifice the rest of us on the altar of their John Wayne fever dreams.

* – Incidentally, in what is surely a nominee for Worst Timing Ever, Ohio in mid-June will become the latest state to allow residents over the age of 21 to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig.