Armed Teachers in Schools

By: AC Hampton

Albany, Ga -Gun violence is becoming a lot more common in schools around the country at this day and age. When parents send their children to school they want to feel like their child is safe and that they will be protected in their learning environment. Random shooting in schools over then last 10 year have parents afraid to even enroll the kids into public schools.

Gun violence poses a serious threat to America’s children and youth. The most recent massacre occurred in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.Existing data clearly point to the need for improved strategies for keeping guns out of the hands of children and youth and those who would harm them. Sandy Hook Elementary Schoor,Columbine,Red Lake high schools, Westside Middle School,  and Virginia Tech were all victims to shooting on their campuses . In 80% of school-associated firearm-related homicides and suicides, the weapons used were obtained from the home or from a friend or relative (Reza et al., 2003).

Unfortunately, when a school shooting occurs, school personnel and children are left helpless until the police arrive or the shooter decides to end the rampage. With out anyone being armed it allows the shooter to roam the campus letting off rounds of ammunition onto faculty and students.

One strategy to help prevent shootings in school is to keep the teachers armed  which in my opinion is one of the best possibly options just in case anything were to happen. There are teachers in every classroom who need to be willing to protect their students in any act of danger .

Teachers, principals and even school janitors could be soon be armed in schools across the nation starting with California.The idea is to create essentially an invisible line of defense and to turn teachers into bodyguards. The main thing that teachers are trying to do is change lives and prevent any wrong doings to their students.

Tim Donnelly (San Bernardino County) is creating a bill named AB202 and says it is more effective than the dozen other proposed gun-control bills attempting to prevent a school shooting like the massacre that left 20 students dead in Newtown, Conn.

The bill would allow school districts to use education funds to train staff who volunteer to be armed and who pass the state's background check.

"We have a moral obligation that the next Vicki Soto, who is faced with inexplicable evil, that she not be left defenseless," said Donnelly, a known gun rights advocate, the Sacramento Bee reports.

No one can predict when a shooting is going to occur but one thing you can do is be prepared for it and train to handle the situation if it does occur. Shootin in public schools is becoming a lot more common so it is our jobs a citizens that we make the right choices when it comes to keeping our children and students safe and provide them with a safe learning environment .  Teachers and faculty should be armed in the case of a school shooting so that they can be in a position to be able to protect their students. We owe this to teachers like Vicki Soto who used her body as a shield to protect students from bullets . 

http://www.nasponline.org/resources/crisis_safety/Youth_Gun_Violence_Fact_Sheet.pdf

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/01/18/now-time-reduce-gun-violence-schools-and-

communities

http://works.bepress.com/mark_velez/1/