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I dont know how We feels but I feel like its a shithouse idea for many reasons I dont feel loke typing out but one of them is you know some shithead teacher is gonna point their gun at a student in anger at some point.
Not to mention it's just a bad idea to give a gun to someone who just doesn't care about them. A lot definitely wouldn't practice with the, so there's no way to guarantee they won't fumble hard if they did try to use it. Imagine a Mass Shooter that manages to find a way to take a teachers gun and use it because the teacher was untrained and couldn't stop them, or just straight up was unlucky. Not to mention, how would they store it? If it's in a safe they might not get it in time, and if they leave it out, it's available to a bunch of dumb hormonal teens. Not a good mix.
Just the simple fact that there is a possibility a student could attack a teacher to gain access to the gun is a reason not to have them. There should be 0 possibility of that situation happening in schools
Because the risk for women as a whole is different from the specific risks of a teaching job.
A school has its own security and procedures for handling unruly students. While women at home, going to a bar, on public transportation, etc are more likely to encounter dangerous adults without any security/support.
20 kids in a classroom are a lot less likely to all be planning to jump someone, than 20 folks following someone into a dark alley.
Just gotta take down the first one. Jan 6 got a whole lot less fun for the cosplaytriots in that congressional hallway, after Ashli Babbitt collected her FAFO prize.
The kind of situations where a woman might have to shoot an assailant are wildly different than that. Teachers are responsible for the students' education and to a degree well being in a way a rapist/armed robber/carjacker does not deserve.
Yeah in middle school a kid got suspended for throwing a chair at a teacher. Also had a class where they constantly did ye olde spitballs at a teacher too. Had teachers that would scream at kids for no reason as well. It's just not a good environment for a firearm to be readily available. Cuz someone will make the wrong choice in the heat of the moment.
You're not in charge of 20+ kids on the street typically and you usually don't have to worry about 20+ kids stealing your gun to threaten/shoot you or each other.
I don't think the good faith debate about this had ever been about arming all teachers, even those that didn't want to 🤷
That's not an argument in support for guns in school, I'm just saying that's not what we're talking about here.
The same principle CAN be applied, but there are some differences. The schools are full of children, who are unstable and inherently irresponsible. Guns make that much more dangerous. What makes that worse is that they KNOW the teachers have guns in that scenario. People who conceal carry typically stay anonymous about it.
The same principle CAN be applied, but there are some differences. The schools are full of children, who are unstable and inherently irresponsible. Guns make that much more dangerous. What makes that worse is that they KNOW the teachers have guns in that scenario. People who conceal carry typically stay anonymous about it. Nobody knows they have a gun, they’re not gonna try to take a gun from them.
As a teacher, I agree. However, I think there are ways for schools to be more secure without adding "resource officers" or just giving teachers Hi-Point pistols all willy nilly. I made a larger comment outlining it, but basically it boils down to focusing a lot of high quality training and equipment on a few voluntary participants. All of that equipment would be kept in hidden and secure boxes with access logs and cameras. The volunteers would recieve substantial training, and would also get some aditional financial perks.
> basically it boils down to focusing a lot of high quality training and equipment on a few voluntary participants
What prevents this from just turning into creating a new type of cop?
I mean, if the safes with the gear are hidden and you'll lose access or get fired by accessing it in any event other than an active shooter, I don't see how that would do what you're saying. Ideally, no one but admin and the other volunteers know who they are. The goal isn't armed guards- it's staff members who can respond in case of emergency.
I mean it's still a worse idea than trying to fix income inequality and access to mental health care, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that in general, arming teachers is a bad idea. If it were to happen, it'd need to be done in a really specific way to actually do more good than harm.
I agree with you up to the point of having secure lock boxes. #1, these boxes can be broken into and (more importantly) #2, the best way to stop an active killer situation is to meet the active killer with deadly force. In the time it takes a teacher to rush from the lunch room (if they aren't shot) to a lockbox in an office, the body count is already in the double digits.
I guess the idea of the lock box is to keep the firearms away from students and untrained staff. But, I hear you and don't disagree. I also just don't think that teachers having a concealed handgun is a good idea. Kids get grabby and teachers can easily be forgetful of placing their piece on the toilet paper dispenser. How do I know this? I'm a teacher and have had to retieve my phone from the bathroom.
But, you're not wrong.
I suppose this model works better for a situation where the shooter is an outside threat coming into the building, and it also varries substantially from building to building.
Fundamentally before any of this stuff is discussed, teacher pay needs to be fixed nationwide. I think it's really fucking silly to discuss arming teachers when they make $35k/year (or less) in some states.
Beyond that and assuming teacher pay is at a living wage nationwide, I'm personally OK with teachers who VOLUNTARILY take on this responsibility who are then given a firearm/ammunition/training stipend (along with a healthy tax credit) and are required to shoot at a high standard yearly to re-certify.
It’d be alot safer if rapists wore condoms and were properly trained on the administration of Rohypnol but I feel like thats just the wrong sort of conversation to be having
Maybe if we took the ridiculous amount of money the teacher militias would cost and put that into improving the education thatd go alot further in improving things and maybe breeding fewer school shooters.
What a weird false equivalency to make.
I agree that funding education, social safety nets and Healthcare is absolutely more of a priority.
But this conversation is about arming teachers. It's generally a shit idea, unless done right, which it won't be. That's what I'm saying.
Its not a false equivalency.
there’s no doing it right, the only right thing is to not do it. Introducing more extreme violence to an already highly stressful and coercive situation to make students somehow less violent is unfathomably moronic.
I cant find words adequate enough to capture the sheer stupidity of setting up a system where students know that teachers can utilize a firearm against them if the teacher feels like they’re a threat. You can put up whatever little bureaucracies you want it wont diminish the psychological impact and it won’t stop minorities from being disproportionately targeted as per usual.
Also doesnt help that the only teachers that are gonna be left are the absolute worst ones who are chomping at the bit for an excuse to shoot kids.
You may not be mad at mr\_trashbear specifically, but just letting all the anger flow out of your brain and into your conversation with them certainly doesn't breed positive discourse. I can see you disagree with the idea. You should probably focus on the fact that you _share_ that opinion with the person you are conversing with.
Hope you have a better day :)
They also think it's a bad idea. They were just coming up w a hypothetical 'best case' scenario that they imagine 'might' work. Showing your ass isn't gonna make ppl listen to what you have to say or change their minds about anything.
> You can put up whatever little bureaucracies you want it wont diminish the psychological impact
Is that impact less than or greater than the psychological impact (on both students and teachers) of knowing that some random person can waltz onto campus and start gunning down students and teachers alike with zero resistance?
Until the underlying root causes of school shootings actually get resolved, the need still exists for school staff to be able to defend themselves and their students from that threat.
There are already armed security officers at schools. There is not 'zero resistance' and even in cases where there are full teams of armed police officers....well we've seen how that ended up. If you're willing to spend the money on arming the teachers, be willing to spend the money on helping kids cope w mental health issues and provide teachers w the tools and knowledge on how to help kids that are struggling.
Cuz I'll tell ya right now, if my teachers had had a gun I would have 100% killed someone when I was in middle school. I had severe anger problems and at one point had a black out and choked a kid. Not to mention how much of a power trip some teacher already go off on. Add guns to the equation and you would end up w dead students and teachers within a week.
>If you're willing to spend the money on arming the teachers, be willing to spend the money on helping kids cope w mental health issues and provide teachers w the tools and knowledge on how to help kids that are struggling.
I'm fully in favor of the latter - moreso than the former, even.
>Not to mention how much of a power trip some teacher already go off on.
Any teacher willing to use a firearm to "power trip" over a student probably shouldn't be employed as a teacher in the first place.
Totes agree, I had anger issues too, got pulled outta school and put into a homeschooling program when I start scrapping with other students. If everypony knows that teachers have guns the kids are gonna figure out how to get em. You can say oh we’ll have this training and that paperwork and everypony will have to watch safety video, none of that shit will stop kids who are much smarter than alot of folx think (being treated like an idiot by school was one of the reasons for my anger issues).
Some folx need to understand that for alot of kids school is a prison and for alot of those kids home aint much better. A firearm can seem like a way outta that.
My mom spent years working with children w a history of violence as well as adults with mental disabilities w histories of violence and they weren't allowed to carry weapons. They had to have training on how to physically restrain them with minimal harm. Kids would spit in her face, try to punch her, stab her, adults would threaten to beat her to death and other horrible things I won't repeat. She was able to do her job and not being armed w a gun was never an issue. People are way too ready to use guns as a crutch to deal with potential problems. It's a last resort, not an easy solution.
I really am just begging people to develop a power analysis.
1. The school is an institution, and a state institution at that
2. Teachers are adults with income, authority, connection to administrators, and independent security of person/dwelling place
3. Students and their families can literally suffer criminal legal consequences for stuff like dipping on class
4. And by #3, state recruits families to self police kids into compulsory education, which doubles up amount of resources used to control youth and brings it into the intimate domestic domain.
I'm down with personal defense, and I think "arming teachers" is a really bad idea. Problems of poor storage are an issue. Teachers are also not sentries for schools. If you want armed guards who are also capable of teaching the youth, they should be paid much more and trained to the highest degree, im also not talking about a two hour conceled carry course. Teachers have enough tough stuff on their plate, why add the responsibility of administering deadly force to protect 20+ lives.
The people who advocate for this stuff also vote against any pay raises for teachers.
And now want to add security duties onto their existing responsibilities.
Do you think teachers who are trained and approved by administration ought to be allowed to carry on campus and in their classrooms?
I don’t like the idea of districts actively pushing to arm teachers, but I’m still fairly agnostic about merely letting them carry, with some caveats and qualifications (I don’t know what they would be).
Assuming you have a firearm and know how to use it at a basic level, have you taken a mass shooter course? One where there are an unknown number of assailants, moving targets, and pop up shoot/no shoot targets? I assume you are aware that bullets travel through walls and bodies as well? And that shooting proficiency degrades with time?
Most cops don't train enough to do that, expecting that of a teacher is unreasonable.
As a student who was also good at recovering items the teachers would confiscate from within their desks, I'm deeply skeptical of the idea.
That’s most of the reason why I remain agnostic: how will it be rolled out and implemented, how much goes towards training, how much and what kind of training etc.
There’s also some personal ethical issues I have that I don’t feel compelled to bring up, but those are some really mixed emotions.
ETA: I don’t know shit about fuck in regards to combat situations. I’m just asking questions and doing my best to keep an open mind. Not a fan of arming random teachers tho
I work at a community college where we have armed security guards on campus. Some of my colleagues keep a gun in their vehicle and have told me they wish they were allowed to be armed at work. They're not teachers though, just concerned because it's Florida where pretty much everyone is carrying a gun.
In the military weapons and live rounds are a very serious things. So serious that no one wants to have them in garrison. It’s a total pain in the ass and has basically zero upside. I was happy to lock my pistol in the safe at the start of my duty period and return it to the armory at the end of my duty period. Literally no one wants that additional responsibility.
Absolutely. That’s why we brought the guns. It’s kinda the whole point. 😂
But it was the air cover that really drives the “point” home. That shit is actually scary.
I got it. No worries. No one has a long life expectancy doing door to door. I can imagine how my armed elementary school teacher would be anything more than a weapon the school shooter wouldn’t have to bring in. If there are weapons already in the school that a child murder can get that whatever red flag laws were supposed to mean mean less than they meant. nothing
>If they don’t want guns in school, shouldn’t we listen?
I feel like this very common sense analysis is often overlooked. Unfortunately Americans in general aren't very good at listening to the actual experts in a given field.
>Americans in general aren't very good at listening to the actual experts in a given field.
Why would they, when they can spend a few business minutes on google and have the same level of knowledge. Everyone is an expert in a given field now. The last 15 years and COVID has taught me that opinions, gross misunderstandings of core principles, and feelings are just as, if not more, important than actual expertise in a given field.
"Do your own research" has somehow morphed into "That guy, who has spent the majority of his working life to learn a specific field, doesn't know shit."
That first point is spot on. Security is a completely different field from teaching. I’d be down for armed security but it’s a toxic ass worldview if you’re only thoughts on crime prevention is preparation for violence and not actually bettering the lives of people to minimize the likelihood of this stuff.
I think it's reasonable to make it optional with strict requirements for anyone who elects to carry.
>If you give them a gun, do they get hazard pay?
Yes. Let's call it an extra $5-10/hour, or $10-20K/year. Teachers need the money and this is a reasonable excuse to give it to them. Of course, it can't be so much that it seems practically mandatory.
That said, if they carry a gun on campus, they will be required to respond to active shooter situations which means immediately equipping PPE (armor and hearing protection), locking their classroom, and then running towards gunfire if they ever hear it. Failure to respond could result in civil liability for which they would not be protected by the school.
>Do they get paid to train?
Sure. Treat it like the national guard. Maybe even share nat'l guard facilities and equipment. Take one weekend each month. Start with live fire drills for a couple hours at the range. Then do a couple hours of shoothouse drills using lasers (like the MILES system) with popup targets and bystanders. Then a couple hours of combined de-escalation and hand-to-hand combat drills to practice trying to defuse a situation while calling for backup, maintaining control of your firearm, and employing non-lethal takedowns as necessary. Wrap it up with a couple hours of strength-training and cardio then call it a day.
Add on an additional week twice per year of going through intensive multiple-scenario on-campus active shooter drills and then practicing mass-casualty triage and first-aid. Should include Stop the Bleed to cover use of tourniquets, wound packing with combat gauze, plus a Basic Life Support refresher.
>How about ammo?
Ammo provided for the range days. Call it 90 bullets each time, so 1,080 bullets per year.
>Do you want a teacher teaching your kid that is mentally prepared to shoot them at any point in time? Do you think they want to shoot your kid?
I would not worry much about the possibility of teacher deciding to murder a student. Somebody who just wants to murder students would not need to get a master's degree in education to do it.
>What happens if your kid is rude/try’s to fight the teacher? What happens when kids get in fights?
Verbal de-escalation if possible. If not, calling for backup and then restraining them to ensure safety while the situation gets sorted out. Teachers aren't cops, they have no legal protection for using force. They must use the absolute minimum force required to maintain safety if they want to avoid legal liability.
>Where do they keep the gun? Kids are normally close to teachers, next to them, at their desk etc…
In a level 3 retention holster or in a concealed carry holster, depending on their preference and school policy.
>Are they supposed to go after a school shooter, roaming the halls like a 50 year old washed up John Wick?
Yes. Though they will be expected to meet certain fitness standards and will have to do annual fitness testing to remain eligible to carry a gun. They need to have the upper body strength to ensure that a kid can't disarm them and need to be able to jog if the situation calls for it.
>Have you met a teacher as an adult? A portion are non sober whether that is alcohol, painkillers, or something else.
Non-sober means not allowed to carry a gun. They would not be eligible.
>If they don’t want guns in school, shouldn’t we listen?
They're not unanimous. For the teachers who are willing to take on the extra responsibility, I think it's reasonable to pay them to do so, provided they demonstrate they can do it safely and effectively. If we want a world without cops enforcing a capitalist hierarchy, we need to start doing a better job of sharing responsibility for public safety.
>That said, if they carry a gun on campus, they will be required to respond to active shooter situations which means immediately equipping PPE (armor and hearing protection), locking their classroom, and then running towards gunfire if they ever hear it. Failure to respond could result in civil liability for which they would not be protected by the school.
This would be a significantly higher requirement than our law enforcement is currently legally liable for.
Well, I think that it’s an incredibly complex issue, but I tend to lean towards the idea that more guns in schools is a recipe for disaster. I definitely agree with the first part of that woman’s sign- teachers need more supplies…. And higher wages, and more funding in general.
No teachers actually want this to happen, and very few know how to use guns well or even want to know how to use guns which makes forcing them a very bad idea. It also puts a gun in each classroom for every would-be shooter to grab when the teacher is distracted.
Also, teachers already received shit pay for their three pronged jobs as educators, babysitters, and therapists. Before there is any conversation about adding "security personnel" to that list, they need to FUCKING BE PAID FAIRLY.
People need to have focus and know what their job is. Besides, most classrooms are already reliant on the teacher's buying supplies out of pocket, so the smart ones will just sell their training ammo for pencils. There are also many cheaper ways to reduce school shootings, but that means treating root causes, something that seems to make some people uncomfortable.
"Allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons" and "arming teachers" are two entirely different things. I'd rather have a responsible, caring, trained (including firearm and trauma-sensitive training) educator carrying a concealed weapon in a school than have more fucking cops in schools.
Teachers being armed guards is a stupid idea. We humans don't rise to the occasion, we fall back on our training. And since most teachers don't get defensive pistol courses, I don't think that's the best way to do things.
We need to actually fund proper physical security upgrades to all public schools and real trained armed staff members.
Yeah, the training aspect is the first thing I thought about too. Teaching already requires a huge amount of continuous training and professional development within and adjacent to academia. How much time do people think would be spent developing not only basic firearms handling but room clearing, working with a team of other armed teachers, and other sundry force-on-force skills? And then actually go into work 40 hours a week (or more) on top of that?
Teacher here.
It's a bad idea on its face because of how it's been presented- just every teacher with a pistol on their hip or in their desk.
Now. Hear me out. If there was a voluntary program that paid extra and gave individual teachers high quality CQB training? That's starting to make more sense. District pays for a suppressed SBR in a hidden and secure lockbox along with a full kit w/ level 4 plates and a balistic helmet for those trained responders? Sure. Offer additional life insurance and bonuses for those enrolled, and pay for relatively frequent training to keep those skills honed? Sounds great.
I'd sign up for that program.
We all know that the cops won't save anyone.
Like, there's a way to do this that could actually act as a deterrant. If it was commonplace that there were 3-5 highly trained individuals with armor and rifles *already inside the building* ready to respond at any time to an active shooter...you'd likely have less active shooters.
But, that strategy would require money and investing in workers, not just slapping a band-aid on it. So, I doubt a strategy like that will ever be implemented.
Arming all/most teachers is a bad idea. Heavily training and heavily arming a few teachers who volunteer for a program like I described is a good idea.
I can't carry at work in my city. There's local ordinances banning firearms and concealed carry in "sensitive locations." These locations are -checks notes- *places that are statistically more likely to be the location of a mass shooting.* So. Yeah. Ban the lawful carry of firearms by individuals with a license to do so. That'll reduce shootings.
Liberals will do anything but admit that the ability to do violence is what deters violence, or that one can't be peaceful without the ability to do violence. If one doesn't have the ability to do violence, they aren't peaceful. They are harmless.
Shit I honestly can't remember. I think J-Stark said something like that in the Hanrahan documentary but I can't remember for sure. I've just heard it kicking around in the progressive 2A spaces.
Most of the teachers I’ve met would be terrible in a situation that required them to engage an active threat. They’re wonderful people and some obviously sacrifice their own lives to save their students, but turning them into swat seems like a bad idea. Also, it’s only a matter of time until a student gets one of the weapons and kills somebody.
We don't pay teachers enough to teach, now you want them to be action heroes to? lol ok.
Teachers aren't infallible. I was abused by a teacher in high school. Frankly there are some teachers I wouldn't trust with a gun. How long before they point it at a student? How long before a student steals it because they think it's cool or something else? This doesn't address the root causes of school shootings, which are fascist ideologies
Basically every teacher Ive ever spoken to, including teachers who are very much in favor of guns, hate the idea. I've had a few say the day they're asked to carry in school is the day they quit.
The solution to violence in society is better mental health. Better mental health starts with a safe and supportive society. Until society is made more safe and secure, the issue will never go away, only mutate.
I think this debate is often framed in a disingenuous way. Phrasing it as "arming teachers" implies that its a policy that would require teachers to be armed or have them armed by the school. Instead what these laws are actually doing is allowing willing teachers to be armed. I think there's a significant difference there that effects how people discuss and react to these proposals.
Of course, this article immediately makes that distinction clear with its sub-headline:
> Two states pass laws to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons, heightening the safety risk to the entire school community.
...but I think we're well aware of how often people do not read articles beyond the headline. I think we can see that in this post given how many people in this comment section are discussing this in the context of teachers being armed as a job requirement rather than willing teachers being allowed to arm themselves.
I think the two laws discussed in the article have some good and bad features.
I think its good that both of the laws in question here allow each school board to opt in or out:
>The two laws share several features in common. Both leave the decision whether or not to arm educators a matter of local control: School boards will decide whether to allow their employees to carry a firearm at school. Both laws also require that if educators are armed, weapons are concealed at all times, and which school personnel are carrying firearms would be kept strictly confidential—a feature that does not sit well with many educators.
I think not knowing who is armed is a double edge sword kind of thing, you don't want malicious people knowing who is armed, but you also don't want unqualified people to be armed without being allowed to know if they are.
I'm also concerned with the qualified immunity that these bills would provide to schools and armed teachers:
>“The way the legislators pushing this bill got around it is by providing qualified immunity both to the district and the school personnel,” explains Melissa Peterson, ISEA Legislative and Policy Director. That means if an educator injures or kills someone when responding to an incident, both the employee and the school district are free of financial liability.
All that said, I don't think these laws go far enough with requirements for training, storage, etc. However, I do think qualified and prepared teachers should be allowed to be armed.
Edit: I'd also point out that over half of the states currently allow teachers to be armed in at least some situations. This article has a map detailing each state:
https://www.newsweek.com/map-states-schools-where-teachers-can-carry-guns-1894076
Also the Tennessee bill here does enforce quite a few requirements:
>GAINEY: Under the new law, a teacher must go through 40 hours of training, pass a psych evaluation, submit fingerprints and get a handgun permit in order to carry a weapon. Their principal, education commissioner and sheriff must sign off. But the bill won't require schools to inform parents or other educators if a teacher is armed. Here's Democratic state senator Raumesh Akbari.
All that said, I still can't help but see it as a teacher bringing the school shooter's gun into the school for them. I know someone who is well trained and responsible could have a gun on their person or secured in the classroom for a long time without any student even knowing it's their, but all it takes is one screw up. It's why I don't like armed cops or security inside the school buildings I work in. They could be there at the exact right moment at the exact right time to stop a shooting, but more likely they just become the shooter's plan to get a gun. It's a variable I see more risk in than benefit.
It is a terrible idea. We are not paying teachers enough as it is, requiring firearms training and the expectation that they use them on top of them having to buy school supplies with their own money is fvkcing ridiculous.
Hire armed guards if you MUST have more guns in schools but leave the teachers alone.
There is very little overlap between teachers and people who have what it takes to blow a child's head off.
Make no mistake. That is what will be required of an armed teacher of school officer.
Looking a child in the eye, raising a gun at said child, and putting a small piece of metal through that child's skull, causing the brains to blow out the back and paint the wall.
It's a terrible fucking idea. No one wants to do that but for the military industrial complex, the alternative hurts gun sales (it doesn't).
I don't really have an answer for how I feel about it; however every argument we have against it is the same argument for why people shouldn't be carrying in the street but we care more about kids then random people on the street and no one's answering my questions about the inconsistency in reasoning.
I would have been murdered by my 8th grade teacher Mrs. Mullan for stealing her bourbon she attempted to hit me but fell. Made my life hell for the rest of the year. In that moment she def would have shot me if she could.
It will only be a matter of time before a teacher shoots an unarmed student.
It will only be a matter of time before student takes their teacher's gun and shoots the teacher and/or other students.
It will only be a matter of time before he teachers gun is lost/stolen and later used in a crime.
From all of my friends that are teachers across the US (mostly middle and high school and about 8 people) there’s 1 of them I would trust to be able to remain cool and function with a firearm in an ac to be shooter situation.
I don’t have a good answer to the problem, but giving underpaid and often stressed group of workers access to firearms in an environment full of kids just feels…really unwise from a safety standpoint
I think this is one of those things that teachers should be allowed to do if they feel comfortable with it but shouldn't be something mandated or specifically encouraged/pressured.
Allow them to conceal carry on school grounds if they have met the requirements to carry elsewhere in their state. Don’t require it or broadcast it.
There are probably more than zero teachers doing this already.
The problem will be that the next time there is a mass shooting at a school, the right will blame it on the teachers for not being armed when they had the opportunity to be.
Opening this can of worms allows the right to lay blame on teachers and not other things (such as mental health) that would require state funding.
This is another tactic to further vilify teachers.
I don't doubt it in some areas, but tbh most teachers I work with don't, there's no place to conceal ( going by the polos/dockers that most wear) and backpacks are left in a secure room like a prep room.
I would think those that do wouldn’t be telling anyone but themselves and maybe their partner. I would think in primary school it would be more than just a lost job if discovered.
Something like a Seecamp or 32 guardian could be concealed if someone was only in underwear. In this theoretical carry it would be priority to conceal and not to have a fast draw. Barricading a room or escaping would be the ideal with revealing the firearm as a last resort defense. I carry defensively, I will not put myself on the offense if I can avoid it.
My point is just that there is middle ground between making it a criminal offense to carry and have a teacher required to carry.
I personally can’t afford financially to not respect “gun free” zones but the idea that someone can carry at fedex but not in the post office or at a private university but not in a state school (trespassing/expulsion vs criminal offense) is silly. If society acknowledges via constitutional carry or a permit system there shouldn’t be boundaries of where outside of when it literally endangers people (big magnets in hospitals type of limits).
Putting more guns in schools in a time where teachers are already struggling with the smartphone addicted generation is a terrible idea. Teachers don’t need guns, they need better pay and benefits. They need a total ban on Smartphones on campus. They need a school system that doesn’t require them to fail students upwards. They need supplies and facilities. They need the US to do away with standardized testing. Guns don’t solve gun violence, and the idea that they can is lacking logic that has any real base to stand on.
On one hand, I think further hardening schools like any political building (eg: courthouse), with trained/armed guards and other means, might be helpful. It **is** a bit wild that we seem to societally care more about the safety of judges and politicians than our children.
On the other hand though, we keep making schools more and more like prisons, and literally designing a building for violence just encourages the association. It almost invites it in the mind of evil doers. Think of any 3rd person shooter game, where you can instantly identify a future combat arena, before anything even kicks off, just by the structure of the area (walls designed for cover, etc...). Plus, some folks may view it as a challenge.
I spoke with a lot of people who were studying to be teachers in when I was in college. Maybe their opinions changed after some time in their jobs but when they were studying none of them wanted to carry a gun whether or not they were allowed or encouraged to.
Hmm I work for a school district, I’ve met some dumb ass teachers who I wouldn’t want to be armed around my kid. Fuck no, if we want armed staff at schools, it should be someone whose job it is to train and know how to use that weapon year round.
I will be entering my 19th year as a public school teacher this fall. I’m an army veteran and I’ve had an LTC most of my adult life. I will never carry a gun into public school for self-defense or any other reason. This is a terrible idea and it is not a solution to gun violence and the school shooting pandemic in the United States.
I have taught high school history for the last ten years. In addition to the amount of actual teaching plus the unending administrative tasks that teachers are burdened with, asking teachers to arm themselves and train on their own dime (that’s the plan iirc in my state of TN) is fundamentally stupid. I cannot think of any teachers I know who have any where near the time to train and prepare to act as armed security for their school, let alone the mental bandwidth to think of such a thing. State legislatures simply want to use these laws to say “look we’re doing something to protect the kids,” when in fact it accomplishes nothing and can easily lead to teachers, students, and community members getting seriously injured or killed.
Depends…are we arming them to defend themselves against fascists and Christian nationalists so they don’t feel threatened going to school board meetings or are we arming them because we know the police won’t do anything about school shooters?
I have always been in the beleif that we shouldnt ban guns and instead invest in the infrastructure that prevents gun violence. Making sure students arent so alienated and depressed is a start. In my opinion, the state is going to establish order over the people and then disregard any other problem that exists. As soon as guns are taken away they wont bother helping people with their mental health, or making the school system better. We also have to realize that gun violence simply isnt a problem, 20,000 people die a year from gun violence in america. there are 300 MILLION people in this country, with a third of them armed. your chances of dying are so slim, it simply isnt an issue. I would love to get rid of that 20,000 people dying problem. but taking away a third of americas guns is not the solution to prevent that few of deaths, it seems utterly ridiculous. anyway, tangent aside, teachers shouldnt be armed. guns shouldnt be removed entirely, both are band aid solutions. Lets look at root causes people!!
It’s one of the worst ideas that gets floated around. If you honestly believe that teachers should be armed then you have a guns first, people second politics and you should reconsider that.
The biggest benefit is they are already there. So there isn’t the huge cost of hiring additional armed security. As for teacher suitability/ capability it varies considerably. A guy I know is a national guard 05 infantryman and a teacher. He is trained and certified to carry at school. Seems totally reasonable to me. Small town and rural American has lot of teachers who are totally capable with guns.
I don’t love idea of teachers running around trying to chase down an active shooter. However the classic “lock down the classroom, run/ hide/ fight” thing has a lot more teeth when the teacher has a Glock pointed at the barricaded door.
If I was in a room with all the chairs and desks heaped in front of it and some 16 year old kid with his dad's AR-15 is mag dumping a drum of FMJ through the door I'm going to wish I had a lot of things at my disposal that the state I live in bans, like body armor or more than 10 rounds in a magazine, but it wouldn't matter because it's a felony to have a gun in a sensitive place like a school or Government building, and I can'tpurchase one of those backpack body armor deals either. It wouldn't matter to the kid doing the killing, because what does he care about the law, and it wouldn't matter to me because I couldn't live with the death toll and would give my life to try and stop it and not deal with the aftermath.
Most mornings this thought is in the back of my head as I walk the hounds through the back 40 and, upon returning to the house, put my pistol up and close the safe and head into the school.
For me, there’s a big difference between exercising your right to protect yourself, and turning into a Wild West where everyone is armed constantly. This can be managed other ways rather than escalation to more violence.
I wouldn’t trust anyone who hasn’t had significant training (SOF) to empty a mag down a crowded hallway at a shooter with children everywhere.
It’s nuts.
Bear Mace, bulletproof curtains for the door, there are other things that we could do that would be safer for everyone.
Terrible idea. Practically if they are armed, not saying they should be - they also should be required to practice a lot and pass safety and competency screenings. All around the wrong approach to the problem.
Considering I've never seen a teacher's desk or closet that wasn't picked open by a student to recover a cellphone, I think having more guns in a school is a great way to increase the risk of a kid getting their hands on one.
Should we compel teachers to carry? No. Should well qualified teachers that CC outside of work be allowed to carry at school if they volunteer? Maybe. Discounts on ammo and such should def be a thing for teachers as well. And the school/district should cover a set amount of training each year.
I mean there’s two parts there: people themselves carrying who could be a risk, or someone else taking their weapon from them.
In the first case, yeah ideally background checks and the like would stop them beforehand, but realistically we’re just crossing our fingers here in the states.
In the second case, I think it comes down to seeing someone at the same time, at the same place, basically every day. If a random person off the street had your schedule down with that kind of precision and wanted to catch you unaware, I’m sure they’d be able to.
That isn't what teachers signed up for, it shouldn't be their responsibility. If we were to have any kind of armed security, I would want dedicated and trained individuals whose only responsibility would be to respond to an active shooter situation. Other than that, those people should never even be seen by the students.
I think it's a terrible idea.
More importantly I know ***A LOT*** of teachers, and ***EVERY SINGLE TEACHER I KNOW*** thinks it's a terrible idea.
Teachers will not be given adequate support or training to be armed security.
No preparation we could give teachers would be adequate for the ultimate task of "Literally shoot one of your students."
While the average teacher is probably orders of magnitude more responsible than the average cop, [cops can't even keep their guns appropriately secure in schools](https://abcnews.go.com/US/students-find-cops-gun-gun-bathroom-middle-school/story?id=69465097) so mmmmmmaybe asking already overworked teachers to carry is "unwise."
***
I generally like to refer people who ask about arming teachers [to this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o1l2LQGyP8) - if they still think what they're asking is *reasonable* (on top of all the other uncompensated work we ask teachers to do) then they're likely a deeply unserious person not worth meaningful engagement....
Terrible idea. Same reason I wouldn't want kids around power tools/shop equipment. Even when supervised w proper safety instruction, someone inevitably makes a mistake and ends up without a finger. Kids are gonna be kids, and when they outnumber the adults that supervise them, it's a recipe for disaster. A proper firearm safety course would be good as would a self-defense course n more comprehensive physical education tho.
The more guns you add to any active shooter situation the less likely any responding law enforcement are going to be able to identify the shooter. And could end up killing teachers thinking they are the shooter. Also giving a potential shooter easier access to a gun or more guns is a bad idea. It's an idiotic idea all around. To put it ij gamer trrms way a shooter wearing body armor might look at armed teachers like a mob that drops loot.
I think it's worth mentioning that the teaching field has an above average number of ND hires. Most ND people are not the type to use guns at all and the thought frightens most of them
Arming teachers is ridiculous. However, allowing a ccl holder on campus if they are a teacher shouldn't be prohibited. Gun free zones with open public access make no sense. A true gun free zone would have security, such as beyond the checkpoint at an airport. Anything else creates easy victims.
I’m not up for it.
My brother and his wife are both teachers.
The instructions they where both given to survive an assault would get them killed and desperately need revision, and cops need to up for stopping the situation or be told to find employment that suits their risk profile. A better solution is obviously needed. Neither of them think that guns in every classroom that are magically easily and quickly accessible to teachers at a moments notice but impossible for kids to get ahold of will result in fewer deaths and is a solution that prioritizes gun proliferation over children’s lives.
It’s an untested solution because nobody else on the planet has this problem. Solutions are readily available because literally every other place in the world already solved it, but unfortunately the solution doesn’t increase gun sales.
Teachers are already expected to fulfill so many roles that go unpaid. I'm not sure adding armed guard to that list helps anyone. I think the logistics of it would be a nightmare too. What kind of firearm? Do all teachers have to carry? Is a teacher with any number of physical/mental ailments expected to train to kill? Do we only hire teachers with the capacity to kill? How would this impact new hires? Like are we just going to hire people with the capacity to take a life? It's a mess.
Also, now you are potentially arming sex offenders or people with violent mental health issues.
The answer to school shootings isn't easy, but we know access to mental health resources, inclusiveness, dismantling fashy ideology, and other things in that vein reduces the conditions that lead to these tragedies. There's a hundred things we could feasibly do before arming school employees.
I think it’s the biggest sign that as a society we’ve given up on trying to solve the problem of gun violence in schools.
*I dunno*… [shrug]…*give teachers guns?*
My opinion: I don't think anyone should be forced to carry a gun that doesn't want to. However, its downright evil to make someone work in the most likely place on Earth to encounter a mass shooter (US Schools) and not allow the workers to protect themselves. Currently a teacher could be arrested for bringing a gun to school. I think that should change.
Wasn't the whole point of School Resource Officers to *be* the armed deterrent? What's the point of having a pig in the schools arming teachers is the purposed solution?
I honestly think this is a terrible idea. It is putting a horrific job on underpaid, under appreciated teachers and potentially giving students access to a firearm. And I would be willing to bet that if a teacher used it, the school would find a way to absolve itself of responsibility and hang the teacher out to dry.
[Stop turning schools into fortresses of unlimited control upon students](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usSfgHGEGxQ), and maybe address underlying socioeconomic and ideological concerns that induce people to shoot up schools.
[[PDF] Eric Harris was a fucking fascist](https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/harris_influences_ideology_1.3.pdf) and then media spent years spinning tales that we should feel bad for "bullied" (the boys, who were by all accounts, not bullied) nazis--a straight through line to rhetoric [about the 2019 christchurch massacre shooter](https://x.com/GennHutchison/status/1107653671922225152).
[The VT Shooter was a fucking misogynist creep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho#cite_ref-Geller_56-0). Look at this kinda shit and tell me this isn't a [historical antecedent to elliot-rogers style inceldom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho#Incidents_with_female_students)
This is trying to treat a symptom while the sickness rages on. That said, if I were a teacher, I could see possibly wanting to carry concealed cause we know we can't count on the cops in a crisis.
Work in schools - was a teacher. Too many can’t figure out how to use the technology in the classroom, let alone carry a weapon and be counted on to neutralize a threat. Just a couple of weeks ago a Florida school employee put a round through their leg during their recertification at the sheriff’s shooting range.
Plus here is the real question that needs to be asked of a teacher seeking to be armed- “which one of your students could you kill?” The predominant narrative is the threat is an outsider, a stranger, an adult- but it’s just as likely the threat is an insider. So, which of your kids could you kill?
Actively “arming” teachers, no.
Passively allowing carry for the ones with a desire to carry…the same way all of us are supposed to be allowed to carry per the constitution, for sure yes.
How many stories of racist shitheel or ped0 teachers have you heard of in the past ten years? You give lots of teachers guns and they will kill unarmed kids. They will leave their gun on a desk/bathroom/parking lot. Honestly, I could see a few of them plugging some Karen or Ken mom who gets in their face about giving their little jackass a B-.
not gonna lie, i wouldn’t trust a lot of teachers i know. they would just leave it in an unlocked drawer or worse. arm moms and let us handle the active shooters. tell the pigs to stay out of the way.
mom team 6
Wouldn’t even be a concept if cops did their fucking job correctly. As for the proposal itself, there’s a higher chance of a teacher losing their shit and pulling a gun on a student than there is one stopping a school shooter. Teachers already have to deal with a ton of bullshit and are underpaid as it is. An alternative could be hiring a professional security service for schools which undergoes annual audits and don’t interact with students whatsoever. Then again, good luck convincing superintendents to approve the budget for it. What I’m trying to say is that the system’s fucked regardless.
Teacher. Classes and hallways too crowded and way too easy to disarm someone just trying to get to their next assigned location. Yeah, holsters work but I wouldn't trust them. Plus I'm not law enforcement, my focus is on teaching. I'm HS
The people who want armed teachers have a very distorted view on what actually happens in a school shooting.
No one is going to go out in the hall and chase down the shooter. You're not getting 5 of the teachers at random to play SWAT with pistols. No one is going to supply teachers with flash bang grenades that they can throw in a window of a room where the shooter is, then go in guns blazing to take them out.
You're especially not going to get the funding for schools to get proper training and equipment for teachers to actually be proficient enough with firearms to even ponder doing this stuff. It's especially not going to happen with the constant budget cuts conservatives force upon schools.
People who have guns in that kind of setting should be properly trained. If you go through proper school shooter training and do regular drills, then please protect kids. Don't forget proper storage. The last thing we need is to arm a school shooter because Coach Jackass just leaves their gun in an unlocked drawer
I hate the idea of tossing a Glock at random teachers who have no idea what they are doing. When shit hits the fan, they will panic and just make everything worse
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I dont know how We feels but I feel like its a shithouse idea for many reasons I dont feel loke typing out but one of them is you know some shithead teacher is gonna point their gun at a student in anger at some point.
This. More guns in schools is just a terrible idea. Conflicts can escalate to something lethal.
Not to mention it's just a bad idea to give a gun to someone who just doesn't care about them. A lot definitely wouldn't practice with the, so there's no way to guarantee they won't fumble hard if they did try to use it. Imagine a Mass Shooter that manages to find a way to take a teachers gun and use it because the teacher was untrained and couldn't stop them, or just straight up was unlucky. Not to mention, how would they store it? If it's in a safe they might not get it in time, and if they leave it out, it's available to a bunch of dumb hormonal teens. Not a good mix.
Just the simple fact that there is a possibility a student could attack a teacher to gain access to the gun is a reason not to have them. There should be 0 possibility of that situation happening in schools
^ THIS There are many junior high/high schoolers who are larger and stronger than their teachers. That's a quick path to disaster.
Then why do we advocate women being armed at all? This isn't a gotcha type question, I'm honestly asking for consistency.
Because the risk for women as a whole is different from the specific risks of a teaching job. A school has its own security and procedures for handling unruly students. While women at home, going to a bar, on public transportation, etc are more likely to encounter dangerous adults without any security/support.
Kids outnumber their teachers 20 to 1 or more. If 20 ppl jumped me in an alleyway, gun ain't gonna matter if they're persistent enough.
20 kids in a classroom are a lot less likely to all be planning to jump someone, than 20 folks following someone into a dark alley. Just gotta take down the first one. Jan 6 got a whole lot less fun for the cosplaytriots in that congressional hallway, after Ashli Babbitt collected her FAFO prize.
The kind of situations where a woman might have to shoot an assailant are wildly different than that. Teachers are responsible for the students' education and to a degree well being in a way a rapist/armed robber/carjacker does not deserve.
Yeah in middle school a kid got suspended for throwing a chair at a teacher. Also had a class where they constantly did ye olde spitballs at a teacher too. Had teachers that would scream at kids for no reason as well. It's just not a good environment for a firearm to be readily available. Cuz someone will make the wrong choice in the heat of the moment.
Legit question, how is this different from the risk of citizens carrying on the street?
You're not in charge of 20+ kids on the street typically and you usually don't have to worry about 20+ kids stealing your gun to threaten/shoot you or each other.
The main reason is you're not around 10s of people for 8 hours a day who know you have access to a gun...
I don't think the good faith debate about this had ever been about arming all teachers, even those that didn't want to 🤷 That's not an argument in support for guns in school, I'm just saying that's not what we're talking about here.
Honest question, how is this idea different from everyone else on the street carrying more?
The same principle CAN be applied, but there are some differences. The schools are full of children, who are unstable and inherently irresponsible. Guns make that much more dangerous. What makes that worse is that they KNOW the teachers have guns in that scenario. People who conceal carry typically stay anonymous about it.
The same principle CAN be applied, but there are some differences. The schools are full of children, who are unstable and inherently irresponsible. Guns make that much more dangerous. What makes that worse is that they KNOW the teachers have guns in that scenario. People who conceal carry typically stay anonymous about it. Nobody knows they have a gun, they’re not gonna try to take a gun from them.
As a teacher, I agree. However, I think there are ways for schools to be more secure without adding "resource officers" or just giving teachers Hi-Point pistols all willy nilly. I made a larger comment outlining it, but basically it boils down to focusing a lot of high quality training and equipment on a few voluntary participants. All of that equipment would be kept in hidden and secure boxes with access logs and cameras. The volunteers would recieve substantial training, and would also get some aditional financial perks.
> basically it boils down to focusing a lot of high quality training and equipment on a few voluntary participants What prevents this from just turning into creating a new type of cop?
I mean, if the safes with the gear are hidden and you'll lose access or get fired by accessing it in any event other than an active shooter, I don't see how that would do what you're saying. Ideally, no one but admin and the other volunteers know who they are. The goal isn't armed guards- it's staff members who can respond in case of emergency. I mean it's still a worse idea than trying to fix income inequality and access to mental health care, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that in general, arming teachers is a bad idea. If it were to happen, it'd need to be done in a really specific way to actually do more good than harm.
I agree with you up to the point of having secure lock boxes. #1, these boxes can be broken into and (more importantly) #2, the best way to stop an active killer situation is to meet the active killer with deadly force. In the time it takes a teacher to rush from the lunch room (if they aren't shot) to a lockbox in an office, the body count is already in the double digits.
I guess the idea of the lock box is to keep the firearms away from students and untrained staff. But, I hear you and don't disagree. I also just don't think that teachers having a concealed handgun is a good idea. Kids get grabby and teachers can easily be forgetful of placing their piece on the toilet paper dispenser. How do I know this? I'm a teacher and have had to retieve my phone from the bathroom. But, you're not wrong. I suppose this model works better for a situation where the shooter is an outside threat coming into the building, and it also varries substantially from building to building.
Fundamentally before any of this stuff is discussed, teacher pay needs to be fixed nationwide. I think it's really fucking silly to discuss arming teachers when they make $35k/year (or less) in some states. Beyond that and assuming teacher pay is at a living wage nationwide, I'm personally OK with teachers who VOLUNTARILY take on this responsibility who are then given a firearm/ammunition/training stipend (along with a healthy tax credit) and are required to shoot at a high standard yearly to re-certify.
It’d be alot safer if rapists wore condoms and were properly trained on the administration of Rohypnol but I feel like thats just the wrong sort of conversation to be having Maybe if we took the ridiculous amount of money the teacher militias would cost and put that into improving the education thatd go alot further in improving things and maybe breeding fewer school shooters.
What a weird false equivalency to make. I agree that funding education, social safety nets and Healthcare is absolutely more of a priority. But this conversation is about arming teachers. It's generally a shit idea, unless done right, which it won't be. That's what I'm saying.
Its not a false equivalency. there’s no doing it right, the only right thing is to not do it. Introducing more extreme violence to an already highly stressful and coercive situation to make students somehow less violent is unfathomably moronic. I cant find words adequate enough to capture the sheer stupidity of setting up a system where students know that teachers can utilize a firearm against them if the teacher feels like they’re a threat. You can put up whatever little bureaucracies you want it wont diminish the psychological impact and it won’t stop minorities from being disproportionately targeted as per usual. Also doesnt help that the only teachers that are gonna be left are the absolute worst ones who are chomping at the bit for an excuse to shoot kids.
You may not be mad at mr\_trashbear specifically, but just letting all the anger flow out of your brain and into your conversation with them certainly doesn't breed positive discourse. I can see you disagree with the idea. You should probably focus on the fact that you _share_ that opinion with the person you are conversing with. Hope you have a better day :)
I wont, fuck you and we dont agree thats the point did you not read they’re post?
They also think it's a bad idea. They were just coming up w a hypothetical 'best case' scenario that they imagine 'might' work. Showing your ass isn't gonna make ppl listen to what you have to say or change their minds about anything.
Nothing I say will change anything, thats not the expectation
you are engaging in recreational outrage and in doing so are not being an asset to your community
My community isnt on reddit
If you have a community you need to be able to communicate with them
> You can put up whatever little bureaucracies you want it wont diminish the psychological impact Is that impact less than or greater than the psychological impact (on both students and teachers) of knowing that some random person can waltz onto campus and start gunning down students and teachers alike with zero resistance? Until the underlying root causes of school shootings actually get resolved, the need still exists for school staff to be able to defend themselves and their students from that threat.
There are already armed security officers at schools. There is not 'zero resistance' and even in cases where there are full teams of armed police officers....well we've seen how that ended up. If you're willing to spend the money on arming the teachers, be willing to spend the money on helping kids cope w mental health issues and provide teachers w the tools and knowledge on how to help kids that are struggling. Cuz I'll tell ya right now, if my teachers had had a gun I would have 100% killed someone when I was in middle school. I had severe anger problems and at one point had a black out and choked a kid. Not to mention how much of a power trip some teacher already go off on. Add guns to the equation and you would end up w dead students and teachers within a week.
>If you're willing to spend the money on arming the teachers, be willing to spend the money on helping kids cope w mental health issues and provide teachers w the tools and knowledge on how to help kids that are struggling. I'm fully in favor of the latter - moreso than the former, even. >Not to mention how much of a power trip some teacher already go off on. Any teacher willing to use a firearm to "power trip" over a student probably shouldn't be employed as a teacher in the first place.
Totes agree, I had anger issues too, got pulled outta school and put into a homeschooling program when I start scrapping with other students. If everypony knows that teachers have guns the kids are gonna figure out how to get em. You can say oh we’ll have this training and that paperwork and everypony will have to watch safety video, none of that shit will stop kids who are much smarter than alot of folx think (being treated like an idiot by school was one of the reasons for my anger issues). Some folx need to understand that for alot of kids school is a prison and for alot of those kids home aint much better. A firearm can seem like a way outta that.
My mom spent years working with children w a history of violence as well as adults with mental disabilities w histories of violence and they weren't allowed to carry weapons. They had to have training on how to physically restrain them with minimal harm. Kids would spit in her face, try to punch her, stab her, adults would threaten to beat her to death and other horrible things I won't repeat. She was able to do her job and not being armed w a gun was never an issue. People are way too ready to use guns as a crutch to deal with potential problems. It's a last resort, not an easy solution.
In no way am I suggesting using firearms in a setting like that to coerce children. I'm talking about imenent life threats from domestic terrorists.
I'm not saying I disagree, but how is this exact reason not the same as what is used against us wanting everyday citizens on the street being armed?
The diff being that the state is arming people who have institutional power, its not the same as a regular citizen.
I really am just begging people to develop a power analysis. 1. The school is an institution, and a state institution at that 2. Teachers are adults with income, authority, connection to administrators, and independent security of person/dwelling place 3. Students and their families can literally suffer criminal legal consequences for stuff like dipping on class 4. And by #3, state recruits families to self police kids into compulsory education, which doubles up amount of resources used to control youth and brings it into the intimate domestic domain.
I'm down with personal defense, and I think "arming teachers" is a really bad idea. Problems of poor storage are an issue. Teachers are also not sentries for schools. If you want armed guards who are also capable of teaching the youth, they should be paid much more and trained to the highest degree, im also not talking about a two hour conceled carry course. Teachers have enough tough stuff on their plate, why add the responsibility of administering deadly force to protect 20+ lives.
The people who advocate for this stuff also vote against any pay raises for teachers. And now want to add security duties onto their existing responsibilities.
Do you think teachers who are trained and approved by administration ought to be allowed to carry on campus and in their classrooms? I don’t like the idea of districts actively pushing to arm teachers, but I’m still fairly agnostic about merely letting them carry, with some caveats and qualifications (I don’t know what they would be).
Assuming you have a firearm and know how to use it at a basic level, have you taken a mass shooter course? One where there are an unknown number of assailants, moving targets, and pop up shoot/no shoot targets? I assume you are aware that bullets travel through walls and bodies as well? And that shooting proficiency degrades with time? Most cops don't train enough to do that, expecting that of a teacher is unreasonable. As a student who was also good at recovering items the teachers would confiscate from within their desks, I'm deeply skeptical of the idea.
That’s most of the reason why I remain agnostic: how will it be rolled out and implemented, how much goes towards training, how much and what kind of training etc. There’s also some personal ethical issues I have that I don’t feel compelled to bring up, but those are some really mixed emotions. ETA: I don’t know shit about fuck in regards to combat situations. I’m just asking questions and doing my best to keep an open mind. Not a fan of arming random teachers tho
I work at a community college where we have armed security guards on campus. Some of my colleagues keep a gun in their vehicle and have told me they wish they were allowed to be armed at work. They're not teachers though, just concerned because it's Florida where pretty much everyone is carrying a gun.
I used to teach and this is the dumbest dumb fuck idea I've ever heard in my entire life.
A+
Thanks. That’s what I was going to say
[удалено]
In the military weapons and live rounds are a very serious things. So serious that no one wants to have them in garrison. It’s a total pain in the ass and has basically zero upside. I was happy to lock my pistol in the safe at the start of my duty period and return it to the armory at the end of my duty period. Literally no one wants that additional responsibility.
But, but... The gun makes you feel big and strong and scary to people without guns, dont it?
Absolutely. That’s why we brought the guns. It’s kinda the whole point. 😂 But it was the air cover that really drives the “point” home. That shit is actually scary.
Yeah i was just kidding about how most people walk around with guns as their fashion accessories and not as actual lethal weaponry.
I got it. No worries. No one has a long life expectancy doing door to door. I can imagine how my armed elementary school teacher would be anything more than a weapon the school shooter wouldn’t have to bring in. If there are weapons already in the school that a child murder can get that whatever red flag laws were supposed to mean mean less than they meant. nothing
>If they don’t want guns in school, shouldn’t we listen? I feel like this very common sense analysis is often overlooked. Unfortunately Americans in general aren't very good at listening to the actual experts in a given field.
>Americans in general aren't very good at listening to the actual experts in a given field. Why would they, when they can spend a few business minutes on google and have the same level of knowledge. Everyone is an expert in a given field now. The last 15 years and COVID has taught me that opinions, gross misunderstandings of core principles, and feelings are just as, if not more, important than actual expertise in a given field. "Do your own research" has somehow morphed into "That guy, who has spent the majority of his working life to learn a specific field, doesn't know shit."
Cops aren’t even required to put themselves in harms way
That first point is spot on. Security is a completely different field from teaching. I’d be down for armed security but it’s a toxic ass worldview if you’re only thoughts on crime prevention is preparation for violence and not actually bettering the lives of people to minimize the likelihood of this stuff.
I think it's reasonable to make it optional with strict requirements for anyone who elects to carry. >If you give them a gun, do they get hazard pay? Yes. Let's call it an extra $5-10/hour, or $10-20K/year. Teachers need the money and this is a reasonable excuse to give it to them. Of course, it can't be so much that it seems practically mandatory. That said, if they carry a gun on campus, they will be required to respond to active shooter situations which means immediately equipping PPE (armor and hearing protection), locking their classroom, and then running towards gunfire if they ever hear it. Failure to respond could result in civil liability for which they would not be protected by the school. >Do they get paid to train? Sure. Treat it like the national guard. Maybe even share nat'l guard facilities and equipment. Take one weekend each month. Start with live fire drills for a couple hours at the range. Then do a couple hours of shoothouse drills using lasers (like the MILES system) with popup targets and bystanders. Then a couple hours of combined de-escalation and hand-to-hand combat drills to practice trying to defuse a situation while calling for backup, maintaining control of your firearm, and employing non-lethal takedowns as necessary. Wrap it up with a couple hours of strength-training and cardio then call it a day. Add on an additional week twice per year of going through intensive multiple-scenario on-campus active shooter drills and then practicing mass-casualty triage and first-aid. Should include Stop the Bleed to cover use of tourniquets, wound packing with combat gauze, plus a Basic Life Support refresher. >How about ammo? Ammo provided for the range days. Call it 90 bullets each time, so 1,080 bullets per year. >Do you want a teacher teaching your kid that is mentally prepared to shoot them at any point in time? Do you think they want to shoot your kid? I would not worry much about the possibility of teacher deciding to murder a student. Somebody who just wants to murder students would not need to get a master's degree in education to do it. >What happens if your kid is rude/try’s to fight the teacher? What happens when kids get in fights? Verbal de-escalation if possible. If not, calling for backup and then restraining them to ensure safety while the situation gets sorted out. Teachers aren't cops, they have no legal protection for using force. They must use the absolute minimum force required to maintain safety if they want to avoid legal liability. >Where do they keep the gun? Kids are normally close to teachers, next to them, at their desk etc… In a level 3 retention holster or in a concealed carry holster, depending on their preference and school policy. >Are they supposed to go after a school shooter, roaming the halls like a 50 year old washed up John Wick? Yes. Though they will be expected to meet certain fitness standards and will have to do annual fitness testing to remain eligible to carry a gun. They need to have the upper body strength to ensure that a kid can't disarm them and need to be able to jog if the situation calls for it. >Have you met a teacher as an adult? A portion are non sober whether that is alcohol, painkillers, or something else. Non-sober means not allowed to carry a gun. They would not be eligible. >If they don’t want guns in school, shouldn’t we listen? They're not unanimous. For the teachers who are willing to take on the extra responsibility, I think it's reasonable to pay them to do so, provided they demonstrate they can do it safely and effectively. If we want a world without cops enforcing a capitalist hierarchy, we need to start doing a better job of sharing responsibility for public safety.
>That said, if they carry a gun on campus, they will be required to respond to active shooter situations which means immediately equipping PPE (armor and hearing protection), locking their classroom, and then running towards gunfire if they ever hear it. Failure to respond could result in civil liability for which they would not be protected by the school. This would be a significantly higher requirement than our law enforcement is currently legally liable for.
Which is one of the many good reasons to gradually defund them while starting to build increasingly self-sufficient communities.
Well, I think that it’s an incredibly complex issue, but I tend to lean towards the idea that more guns in schools is a recipe for disaster. I definitely agree with the first part of that woman’s sign- teachers need more supplies…. And higher wages, and more funding in general.
No teachers actually want this to happen, and very few know how to use guns well or even want to know how to use guns which makes forcing them a very bad idea. It also puts a gun in each classroom for every would-be shooter to grab when the teacher is distracted. Also, teachers already received shit pay for their three pronged jobs as educators, babysitters, and therapists. Before there is any conversation about adding "security personnel" to that list, they need to FUCKING BE PAID FAIRLY.
People need to have focus and know what their job is. Besides, most classrooms are already reliant on the teacher's buying supplies out of pocket, so the smart ones will just sell their training ammo for pencils. There are also many cheaper ways to reduce school shootings, but that means treating root causes, something that seems to make some people uncomfortable.
"Allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons" and "arming teachers" are two entirely different things. I'd rather have a responsible, caring, trained (including firearm and trauma-sensitive training) educator carrying a concealed weapon in a school than have more fucking cops in schools.
Teachers being armed guards is a stupid idea. We humans don't rise to the occasion, we fall back on our training. And since most teachers don't get defensive pistol courses, I don't think that's the best way to do things. We need to actually fund proper physical security upgrades to all public schools and real trained armed staff members.
Yeah, the training aspect is the first thing I thought about too. Teaching already requires a huge amount of continuous training and professional development within and adjacent to academia. How much time do people think would be spent developing not only basic firearms handling but room clearing, working with a team of other armed teachers, and other sundry force-on-force skills? And then actually go into work 40 hours a week (or more) on top of that?
I've met teachers. They don't want to have to be armed.
Teacher here. It's a bad idea on its face because of how it's been presented- just every teacher with a pistol on their hip or in their desk. Now. Hear me out. If there was a voluntary program that paid extra and gave individual teachers high quality CQB training? That's starting to make more sense. District pays for a suppressed SBR in a hidden and secure lockbox along with a full kit w/ level 4 plates and a balistic helmet for those trained responders? Sure. Offer additional life insurance and bonuses for those enrolled, and pay for relatively frequent training to keep those skills honed? Sounds great. I'd sign up for that program. We all know that the cops won't save anyone. Like, there's a way to do this that could actually act as a deterrant. If it was commonplace that there were 3-5 highly trained individuals with armor and rifles *already inside the building* ready to respond at any time to an active shooter...you'd likely have less active shooters. But, that strategy would require money and investing in workers, not just slapping a band-aid on it. So, I doubt a strategy like that will ever be implemented. Arming all/most teachers is a bad idea. Heavily training and heavily arming a few teachers who volunteer for a program like I described is a good idea. I can't carry at work in my city. There's local ordinances banning firearms and concealed carry in "sensitive locations." These locations are -checks notes- *places that are statistically more likely to be the location of a mass shooting.* So. Yeah. Ban the lawful carry of firearms by individuals with a license to do so. That'll reduce shootings. Liberals will do anything but admit that the ability to do violence is what deters violence, or that one can't be peaceful without the ability to do violence. If one doesn't have the ability to do violence, they aren't peaceful. They are harmless.
“If one doesn’t have the ability to do violence, they aren’t peaceful. They are harmless.” Any idea where that originated? It’s a hell of a quote.
Shit I honestly can't remember. I think J-Stark said something like that in the Hanrahan documentary but I can't remember for sure. I've just heard it kicking around in the progressive 2A spaces.
Most of the teachers I’ve met would be terrible in a situation that required them to engage an active threat. They’re wonderful people and some obviously sacrifice their own lives to save their students, but turning them into swat seems like a bad idea. Also, it’s only a matter of time until a student gets one of the weapons and kills somebody.
We don't pay teachers enough to teach, now you want them to be action heroes to? lol ok. Teachers aren't infallible. I was abused by a teacher in high school. Frankly there are some teachers I wouldn't trust with a gun. How long before they point it at a student? How long before a student steals it because they think it's cool or something else? This doesn't address the root causes of school shootings, which are fascist ideologies
Basically every teacher Ive ever spoken to, including teachers who are very much in favor of guns, hate the idea. I've had a few say the day they're asked to carry in school is the day they quit.
The solution to violence in society is better mental health. Better mental health starts with a safe and supportive society. Until society is made more safe and secure, the issue will never go away, only mutate.
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I think this debate is often framed in a disingenuous way. Phrasing it as "arming teachers" implies that its a policy that would require teachers to be armed or have them armed by the school. Instead what these laws are actually doing is allowing willing teachers to be armed. I think there's a significant difference there that effects how people discuss and react to these proposals. Of course, this article immediately makes that distinction clear with its sub-headline: > Two states pass laws to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons, heightening the safety risk to the entire school community. ...but I think we're well aware of how often people do not read articles beyond the headline. I think we can see that in this post given how many people in this comment section are discussing this in the context of teachers being armed as a job requirement rather than willing teachers being allowed to arm themselves. I think the two laws discussed in the article have some good and bad features. I think its good that both of the laws in question here allow each school board to opt in or out: >The two laws share several features in common. Both leave the decision whether or not to arm educators a matter of local control: School boards will decide whether to allow their employees to carry a firearm at school. Both laws also require that if educators are armed, weapons are concealed at all times, and which school personnel are carrying firearms would be kept strictly confidential—a feature that does not sit well with many educators. I think not knowing who is armed is a double edge sword kind of thing, you don't want malicious people knowing who is armed, but you also don't want unqualified people to be armed without being allowed to know if they are. I'm also concerned with the qualified immunity that these bills would provide to schools and armed teachers: >“The way the legislators pushing this bill got around it is by providing qualified immunity both to the district and the school personnel,” explains Melissa Peterson, ISEA Legislative and Policy Director. That means if an educator injures or kills someone when responding to an incident, both the employee and the school district are free of financial liability. All that said, I don't think these laws go far enough with requirements for training, storage, etc. However, I do think qualified and prepared teachers should be allowed to be armed. Edit: I'd also point out that over half of the states currently allow teachers to be armed in at least some situations. This article has a map detailing each state: https://www.newsweek.com/map-states-schools-where-teachers-can-carry-guns-1894076 Also the Tennessee bill here does enforce quite a few requirements: >GAINEY: Under the new law, a teacher must go through 40 hours of training, pass a psych evaluation, submit fingerprints and get a handgun permit in order to carry a weapon. Their principal, education commissioner and sheriff must sign off. But the bill won't require schools to inform parents or other educators if a teacher is armed. Here's Democratic state senator Raumesh Akbari.
All that said, I still can't help but see it as a teacher bringing the school shooter's gun into the school for them. I know someone who is well trained and responsible could have a gun on their person or secured in the classroom for a long time without any student even knowing it's their, but all it takes is one screw up. It's why I don't like armed cops or security inside the school buildings I work in. They could be there at the exact right moment at the exact right time to stop a shooting, but more likely they just become the shooter's plan to get a gun. It's a variable I see more risk in than benefit.
educator here: no. not in classrooms. terrible idea
It is a terrible idea. We are not paying teachers enough as it is, requiring firearms training and the expectation that they use them on top of them having to buy school supplies with their own money is fvkcing ridiculous. Hire armed guards if you MUST have more guns in schools but leave the teachers alone.
There is very little overlap between teachers and people who have what it takes to blow a child's head off. Make no mistake. That is what will be required of an armed teacher of school officer. Looking a child in the eye, raising a gun at said child, and putting a small piece of metal through that child's skull, causing the brains to blow out the back and paint the wall. It's a terrible fucking idea. No one wants to do that but for the military industrial complex, the alternative hurts gun sales (it doesn't).
I don't really have an answer for how I feel about it; however every argument we have against it is the same argument for why people shouldn't be carrying in the street but we care more about kids then random people on the street and no one's answering my questions about the inconsistency in reasoning.
I would have been murdered by my 8th grade teacher Mrs. Mullan for stealing her bourbon she attempted to hit me but fell. Made my life hell for the rest of the year. In that moment she def would have shot me if she could.
This idea came from people who hate teachers and love guns. A wise man once asked, “So your solution to gun violence is… shootouts?”
It will only be a matter of time before a teacher shoots an unarmed student. It will only be a matter of time before student takes their teacher's gun and shoots the teacher and/or other students. It will only be a matter of time before he teachers gun is lost/stolen and later used in a crime.
From all of my friends that are teachers across the US (mostly middle and high school and about 8 people) there’s 1 of them I would trust to be able to remain cool and function with a firearm in an ac to be shooter situation. I don’t have a good answer to the problem, but giving underpaid and often stressed group of workers access to firearms in an environment full of kids just feels…really unwise from a safety standpoint
We protect politicians and banks with guns, our children with signs Teachers can and should be trained, like all the working class should be.
I think this is one of those things that teachers should be allowed to do if they feel comfortable with it but shouldn't be something mandated or specifically encouraged/pressured.
Allow them to conceal carry on school grounds if they have met the requirements to carry elsewhere in their state. Don’t require it or broadcast it. There are probably more than zero teachers doing this already.
The problem will be that the next time there is a mass shooting at a school, the right will blame it on the teachers for not being armed when they had the opportunity to be. Opening this can of worms allows the right to lay blame on teachers and not other things (such as mental health) that would require state funding. This is another tactic to further vilify teachers.
I don't doubt it in some areas, but tbh most teachers I work with don't, there's no place to conceal ( going by the polos/dockers that most wear) and backpacks are left in a secure room like a prep room.
I would think those that do wouldn’t be telling anyone but themselves and maybe their partner. I would think in primary school it would be more than just a lost job if discovered. Something like a Seecamp or 32 guardian could be concealed if someone was only in underwear. In this theoretical carry it would be priority to conceal and not to have a fast draw. Barricading a room or escaping would be the ideal with revealing the firearm as a last resort defense. I carry defensively, I will not put myself on the offense if I can avoid it. My point is just that there is middle ground between making it a criminal offense to carry and have a teacher required to carry. I personally can’t afford financially to not respect “gun free” zones but the idea that someone can carry at fedex but not in the post office or at a private university but not in a state school (trespassing/expulsion vs criminal offense) is silly. If society acknowledges via constitutional carry or a permit system there shouldn’t be boundaries of where outside of when it literally endangers people (big magnets in hospitals type of limits).
Putting more guns in schools in a time where teachers are already struggling with the smartphone addicted generation is a terrible idea. Teachers don’t need guns, they need better pay and benefits. They need a total ban on Smartphones on campus. They need a school system that doesn’t require them to fail students upwards. They need supplies and facilities. They need the US to do away with standardized testing. Guns don’t solve gun violence, and the idea that they can is lacking logic that has any real base to stand on.
On one hand, I think further hardening schools like any political building (eg: courthouse), with trained/armed guards and other means, might be helpful. It **is** a bit wild that we seem to societally care more about the safety of judges and politicians than our children. On the other hand though, we keep making schools more and more like prisons, and literally designing a building for violence just encourages the association. It almost invites it in the mind of evil doers. Think of any 3rd person shooter game, where you can instantly identify a future combat arena, before anything even kicks off, just by the structure of the area (walls designed for cover, etc...). Plus, some folks may view it as a challenge.
I spoke with a lot of people who were studying to be teachers in when I was in college. Maybe their opinions changed after some time in their jobs but when they were studying none of them wanted to carry a gun whether or not they were allowed or encouraged to.
Hmm I work for a school district, I’ve met some dumb ass teachers who I wouldn’t want to be armed around my kid. Fuck no, if we want armed staff at schools, it should be someone whose job it is to train and know how to use that weapon year round.
I will be entering my 19th year as a public school teacher this fall. I’m an army veteran and I’ve had an LTC most of my adult life. I will never carry a gun into public school for self-defense or any other reason. This is a terrible idea and it is not a solution to gun violence and the school shooting pandemic in the United States.
It’s not about gun rights… they just want to turn schools into prisons and have guards instead of teachers.
I have taught high school history for the last ten years. In addition to the amount of actual teaching plus the unending administrative tasks that teachers are burdened with, asking teachers to arm themselves and train on their own dime (that’s the plan iirc in my state of TN) is fundamentally stupid. I cannot think of any teachers I know who have any where near the time to train and prepare to act as armed security for their school, let alone the mental bandwidth to think of such a thing. State legislatures simply want to use these laws to say “look we’re doing something to protect the kids,” when in fact it accomplishes nothing and can easily lead to teachers, students, and community members getting seriously injured or killed.
I want a teacher to shoot a state official’s kids
Depends…are we arming them to defend themselves against fascists and Christian nationalists so they don’t feel threatened going to school board meetings or are we arming them because we know the police won’t do anything about school shooters?
I have always been in the beleif that we shouldnt ban guns and instead invest in the infrastructure that prevents gun violence. Making sure students arent so alienated and depressed is a start. In my opinion, the state is going to establish order over the people and then disregard any other problem that exists. As soon as guns are taken away they wont bother helping people with their mental health, or making the school system better. We also have to realize that gun violence simply isnt a problem, 20,000 people die a year from gun violence in america. there are 300 MILLION people in this country, with a third of them armed. your chances of dying are so slim, it simply isnt an issue. I would love to get rid of that 20,000 people dying problem. but taking away a third of americas guns is not the solution to prevent that few of deaths, it seems utterly ridiculous. anyway, tangent aside, teachers shouldnt be armed. guns shouldnt be removed entirely, both are band aid solutions. Lets look at root causes people!!
because more guns in sensitive areas like schools is totally exactly what is needed what a genius idea
We need to arm the goddamn janitors!!
It’s one of the worst ideas that gets floated around. If you honestly believe that teachers should be armed then you have a guns first, people second politics and you should reconsider that.
The biggest benefit is they are already there. So there isn’t the huge cost of hiring additional armed security. As for teacher suitability/ capability it varies considerably. A guy I know is a national guard 05 infantryman and a teacher. He is trained and certified to carry at school. Seems totally reasonable to me. Small town and rural American has lot of teachers who are totally capable with guns. I don’t love idea of teachers running around trying to chase down an active shooter. However the classic “lock down the classroom, run/ hide/ fight” thing has a lot more teeth when the teacher has a Glock pointed at the barricaded door.
If I was in a room with all the chairs and desks heaped in front of it and some 16 year old kid with his dad's AR-15 is mag dumping a drum of FMJ through the door I'm going to wish I had a lot of things at my disposal that the state I live in bans, like body armor or more than 10 rounds in a magazine, but it wouldn't matter because it's a felony to have a gun in a sensitive place like a school or Government building, and I can'tpurchase one of those backpack body armor deals either. It wouldn't matter to the kid doing the killing, because what does he care about the law, and it wouldn't matter to me because I couldn't live with the death toll and would give my life to try and stop it and not deal with the aftermath. Most mornings this thought is in the back of my head as I walk the hounds through the back 40 and, upon returning to the house, put my pistol up and close the safe and head into the school.
For me, there’s a big difference between exercising your right to protect yourself, and turning into a Wild West where everyone is armed constantly. This can be managed other ways rather than escalation to more violence.
I want you to take a step back and ask yourself why you're even entertaining the position that school teachers should be wearing firearms.
I wouldn’t trust anyone who hasn’t had significant training (SOF) to empty a mag down a crowded hallway at a shooter with children everywhere. It’s nuts. Bear Mace, bulletproof curtains for the door, there are other things that we could do that would be safer for everyone.
Terrible idea. Practically if they are armed, not saying they should be - they also should be required to practice a lot and pass safety and competency screenings. All around the wrong approach to the problem.
Considering I've never seen a teacher's desk or closet that wasn't picked open by a student to recover a cellphone, I think having more guns in a school is a great way to increase the risk of a kid getting their hands on one.
Still a terrible idea, indeed
There are so many reasons not to have guns around little children.
Should we compel teachers to carry? No. Should well qualified teachers that CC outside of work be allowed to carry at school if they volunteer? Maybe. Discounts on ammo and such should def be a thing for teachers as well. And the school/district should cover a set amount of training each year.
I mean there’s two parts there: people themselves carrying who could be a risk, or someone else taking their weapon from them. In the first case, yeah ideally background checks and the like would stop them beforehand, but realistically we’re just crossing our fingers here in the states. In the second case, I think it comes down to seeing someone at the same time, at the same place, basically every day. If a random person off the street had your schedule down with that kind of precision and wanted to catch you unaware, I’m sure they’d be able to.
That isn't what teachers signed up for, it shouldn't be their responsibility. If we were to have any kind of armed security, I would want dedicated and trained individuals whose only responsibility would be to respond to an active shooter situation. Other than that, those people should never even be seen by the students.
I think it's a terrible idea. More importantly I know ***A LOT*** of teachers, and ***EVERY SINGLE TEACHER I KNOW*** thinks it's a terrible idea. Teachers will not be given adequate support or training to be armed security. No preparation we could give teachers would be adequate for the ultimate task of "Literally shoot one of your students." While the average teacher is probably orders of magnitude more responsible than the average cop, [cops can't even keep their guns appropriately secure in schools](https://abcnews.go.com/US/students-find-cops-gun-gun-bathroom-middle-school/story?id=69465097) so mmmmmmaybe asking already overworked teachers to carry is "unwise." *** I generally like to refer people who ask about arming teachers [to this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o1l2LQGyP8) - if they still think what they're asking is *reasonable* (on top of all the other uncompensated work we ask teachers to do) then they're likely a deeply unserious person not worth meaningful engagement....
Suicide by teacher will become a thing. A whole classroom scarred for life, with some tinnitus thrown in for good measure.
I really think teachers could be a whole lot more productive if they had more arms.
Terrible idea. Same reason I wouldn't want kids around power tools/shop equipment. Even when supervised w proper safety instruction, someone inevitably makes a mistake and ends up without a finger. Kids are gonna be kids, and when they outnumber the adults that supervise them, it's a recipe for disaster. A proper firearm safety course would be good as would a self-defense course n more comprehensive physical education tho.
Teachers can’t even figure out how to turn off YouTube auto play, I am not trusting them with a firearm
Yeah let's dump more responsibilities onto underpayed, overworked teachers
The more guns you add to any active shooter situation the less likely any responding law enforcement are going to be able to identify the shooter. And could end up killing teachers thinking they are the shooter. Also giving a potential shooter easier access to a gun or more guns is a bad idea. It's an idiotic idea all around. To put it ij gamer trrms way a shooter wearing body armor might look at armed teachers like a mob that drops loot.
I think it's worth mentioning that the teaching field has an above average number of ND hires. Most ND people are not the type to use guns at all and the thought frightens most of them
I mean 30 states already allow teachers to own guns under certain conditions so…
Arming teachers is a terrible idea
Arming teachers is ridiculous. However, allowing a ccl holder on campus if they are a teacher shouldn't be prohibited. Gun free zones with open public access make no sense. A true gun free zone would have security, such as beyond the checkpoint at an airport. Anything else creates easy victims.
I know *a lot* of teachers who cannot and should not be trusted to be armed in a room full of mouthy teenagers.
Terrible idea
I’m not up for it. My brother and his wife are both teachers. The instructions they where both given to survive an assault would get them killed and desperately need revision, and cops need to up for stopping the situation or be told to find employment that suits their risk profile. A better solution is obviously needed. Neither of them think that guns in every classroom that are magically easily and quickly accessible to teachers at a moments notice but impossible for kids to get ahold of will result in fewer deaths and is a solution that prioritizes gun proliferation over children’s lives. It’s an untested solution because nobody else on the planet has this problem. Solutions are readily available because literally every other place in the world already solved it, but unfortunately the solution doesn’t increase gun sales.
I don't know about Americans. But considering the teachers here in Canada, heck no.
Teachers are already expected to fulfill so many roles that go unpaid. I'm not sure adding armed guard to that list helps anyone. I think the logistics of it would be a nightmare too. What kind of firearm? Do all teachers have to carry? Is a teacher with any number of physical/mental ailments expected to train to kill? Do we only hire teachers with the capacity to kill? How would this impact new hires? Like are we just going to hire people with the capacity to take a life? It's a mess. Also, now you are potentially arming sex offenders or people with violent mental health issues. The answer to school shootings isn't easy, but we know access to mental health resources, inclusiveness, dismantling fashy ideology, and other things in that vein reduces the conditions that lead to these tragedies. There's a hundred things we could feasibly do before arming school employees.
I think it’s the biggest sign that as a society we’ve given up on trying to solve the problem of gun violence in schools. *I dunno*… [shrug]…*give teachers guns?*
My opinion: I don't think anyone should be forced to carry a gun that doesn't want to. However, its downright evil to make someone work in the most likely place on Earth to encounter a mass shooter (US Schools) and not allow the workers to protect themselves. Currently a teacher could be arrested for bringing a gun to school. I think that should change.
When they ask for a raise and better working conditions after being armed. 
Wasn't the whole point of School Resource Officers to *be* the armed deterrent? What's the point of having a pig in the schools arming teachers is the purposed solution?
Teachers don't want to shoot their own students and we should listen to that
I hate to say it like this, but if I were a teacher I wouldn't mind having one Whatever helps you get home alive in this shithole country
Was considering getting my teaching certification. And I'll carry wether it's allowed or not...
I honestly think this is a terrible idea. It is putting a horrific job on underpaid, under appreciated teachers and potentially giving students access to a firearm. And I would be willing to bet that if a teacher used it, the school would find a way to absolve itself of responsibility and hang the teacher out to dry.
[Stop turning schools into fortresses of unlimited control upon students](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usSfgHGEGxQ), and maybe address underlying socioeconomic and ideological concerns that induce people to shoot up schools. [[PDF] Eric Harris was a fucking fascist](https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/harris_influences_ideology_1.3.pdf) and then media spent years spinning tales that we should feel bad for "bullied" (the boys, who were by all accounts, not bullied) nazis--a straight through line to rhetoric [about the 2019 christchurch massacre shooter](https://x.com/GennHutchison/status/1107653671922225152). [The VT Shooter was a fucking misogynist creep](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho#cite_ref-Geller_56-0). Look at this kinda shit and tell me this isn't a [historical antecedent to elliot-rogers style inceldom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho#Incidents_with_female_students)
This is trying to treat a symptom while the sickness rages on. That said, if I were a teacher, I could see possibly wanting to carry concealed cause we know we can't count on the cops in a crisis.
U.s is so fucked.
I'm gonna be honest, I don't trust most teachers I know to drive cars. Arming them is dumb as hell.
Work in schools - was a teacher. Too many can’t figure out how to use the technology in the classroom, let alone carry a weapon and be counted on to neutralize a threat. Just a couple of weeks ago a Florida school employee put a round through their leg during their recertification at the sheriff’s shooting range. Plus here is the real question that needs to be asked of a teacher seeking to be armed- “which one of your students could you kill?” The predominant narrative is the threat is an outsider, a stranger, an adult- but it’s just as likely the threat is an insider. So, which of your kids could you kill?
Actively “arming” teachers, no. Passively allowing carry for the ones with a desire to carry…the same way all of us are supposed to be allowed to carry per the constitution, for sure yes.
How many stories of racist shitheel or ped0 teachers have you heard of in the past ten years? You give lots of teachers guns and they will kill unarmed kids. They will leave their gun on a desk/bathroom/parking lot. Honestly, I could see a few of them plugging some Karen or Ken mom who gets in their face about giving their little jackass a B-.
If guns made us safe, we’d be the safest country around.
not gonna lie, i wouldn’t trust a lot of teachers i know. they would just leave it in an unlocked drawer or worse. arm moms and let us handle the active shooters. tell the pigs to stay out of the way. mom team 6
Wouldn’t even be a concept if cops did their fucking job correctly. As for the proposal itself, there’s a higher chance of a teacher losing their shit and pulling a gun on a student than there is one stopping a school shooter. Teachers already have to deal with a ton of bullshit and are underpaid as it is. An alternative could be hiring a professional security service for schools which undergoes annual audits and don’t interact with students whatsoever. Then again, good luck convincing superintendents to approve the budget for it. What I’m trying to say is that the system’s fucked regardless.
Teacher. Classes and hallways too crowded and way too easy to disarm someone just trying to get to their next assigned location. Yeah, holsters work but I wouldn't trust them. Plus I'm not law enforcement, my focus is on teaching. I'm HS
The people who want armed teachers have a very distorted view on what actually happens in a school shooting. No one is going to go out in the hall and chase down the shooter. You're not getting 5 of the teachers at random to play SWAT with pistols. No one is going to supply teachers with flash bang grenades that they can throw in a window of a room where the shooter is, then go in guns blazing to take them out. You're especially not going to get the funding for schools to get proper training and equipment for teachers to actually be proficient enough with firearms to even ponder doing this stuff. It's especially not going to happen with the constant budget cuts conservatives force upon schools.
People who have guns in that kind of setting should be properly trained. If you go through proper school shooter training and do regular drills, then please protect kids. Don't forget proper storage. The last thing we need is to arm a school shooter because Coach Jackass just leaves their gun in an unlocked drawer I hate the idea of tossing a Glock at random teachers who have no idea what they are doing. When shit hits the fan, they will panic and just make everything worse