Teachers with Guns
How much should we trust our teachers? Schools have been going from bad to worse, in terms of safety. There have been a lot of shootings at schools over the years, but recently they have been over the top in horror. If teachers had guns, would the students be safer? We are going analyze schools safety, shootings in schools, and armed guards or teachers with guns. Schools have been doing a lot to limit, if not stop, the violence on school grounds. There are districts in Oklahoma that have already done a lot to prevent school violence.
Putnam City School district already has security cameras in it; as a matter of fact about 30% of high schools have security cameras installed. They also have a police officer walking the halls and working as security on school grounds. The real question is, is all this security helping the district on keeping the violence down? In the case of the Putnam City district the security measures are helping. With the 750 security cameras over the 27 schools, police officers and security officers in schools, secure access entrances, lockdown drills, etcetera… the schools have had a low violence rate compared to other schools across the country.
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The bad part about this is that kids are still getting weapons into the schools. In this situation a kid can just put a weapon into his or her bag and take it into class. One of the security measures that this district is missing would be police officers with metal detectors in the entrances, when the kids are coming into class. If more school districts carried security policies as strict as Putnam City does, there would be less violence in the schools. All this is helping to lower violence in schools, rather than teachers having guns. Giving teacher guns will increase the pressure on schools and may cause more harm then good.
Even though the Newton, Connecticut shooting was horrible not all situations are like this. There were 27 people killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. This was done by a mentally ill person. Not all situations are going to be like this one. He forced himself into the school by shooting the door and crawling through it. While there was very little to stop a person like this, however if a police was officer at the school to stop him once he was in the building thing would have been different. Having teachers with guns in schools, to help stop violence, is basically contradicting itself.
Having untrained teachers carrying guns is dangerous. Being in a stressful situation that you are not ready for or trained for, will make you act out of randomness not thinking clearly of what is really going on. The situation I am referring to is a shooting in school. Very few teachers have had any experiences with guns. Out of all of the years I was in school, not including college, I had two teachers with military backgrounds. Those actually have used guns on other people. To have a teacher, that has only taught his or her entire life, pull a gun on a student would be very stressful and may not be able to act under that situation.
Also many teachers may have a short temper in the first place and pull a gun on a student. That would be an entirely different situation that the school would need to handle in long hours of court time. Many teachers do not teach for the money. The range of salary for a high school teacher in Oklahoma it anywhere from $41,000. 00 to $61,000. 00. This is just for high school, the pay decreases from middle school all the way the elementary. Also most of the teachers are closer to the $41,000. 00 then the $61,000. 00, the teacher with the high end pay will mainly be more for private school teachers then public schools.
This being said, teacher love their students. They think of them more as family, because more time is spent with them than with their real families. Many teachers would quit if guns could be carried by teacher. Like I said teacher are become teacher for the kids not for the money. If they were in it for the money, they would choose a different career past. The teacher lover there students, and they would rather quit than have a gun on them to protect them. The teacher lover there students so much they would rather quit then being in more danger into the schools. Guns on school premises would bring in a lot of different issues.
The main one that I would see right off the bat would be storage of the guns. Would each teacher need to carry the gun with them at all times? If not that are there going to be safes in each of the class rooms to have the gun in, because any student can overpower a teacher and just take the gun if they wanted to. This would make the situation worse; the students would already have the weapons on school grounds. All they need to do is find a way to get it, and there will be students that will want to get the guns to cause harm, make a since, or just to prove a point. Teacher with guns just sounds bad.
Making this a reality across the country will take a long time, because all the teachers will need to be trained to use guns. There needs to be many hours of training, so they would be shooting in a different direction when things like shooting happen. Also they will need to be trained on when to use the guns. Just when there is an intruder or when there is big outburst in school like a massive fight that gets out of control with a teacher and they are scared for their life. On the other hand you can have an armed police officer at the schools to prevent the shooting and even the violence.
Just having a police officer present will help keep the students in line. The title of police officer has too many students, respect behind it and the students know that; students will have more respect for a police officer than one of their teachers with guns. This is because to them teachers are there to teach and the police officer is there just to keep everything in order. You may even go out and say for the principle of the school have a gun in his office, if the school does not have the funds to obtain an armed police officer as security.
Having the principle of the school carry a gun is more understandable then every teacher having a gun. The principal has an office that no student is allowed into without the principal in the office with them. They would be much easier to keep track of, because everyone will know who has the gun and if anything happens someone can help from within the school. This would be much cheaper than having an armed police officer and teaching every teacher to shoot and carry a gun properly. This would be a good idea for low funded school, not the best idea but will help.
I have looked into taking gun control classes. I have asked around for people to teach me, and the average cost per hour is anywhere from $25. 00 to $75. 00. They also charge per person that wants to learn how to shoot. The average cost hour may go down if there is a big group, but this is still a big number. As you can see the cost to teach all the teachers in a school will be an extraordinarily large amount. This is just cover the cost of shooting, not including the mental strength that needs to be taught in order to handle a gun against another person.
This being said, having a police officer as guard at the schools would be cheaper. The average pay for an Oklahoma City Police Officer is about $47. 000. 00. This is a fairly large amount, but the advantages are much greater. They already have their gun training and mental strength to handle stressful situations. “No matter the risk, so that others may live”, this is said by many law enforcement officers. They are ready to do anything to save lives, even though they have their own families. This is there chose, now how many teachers are able to do this?
The truth is that teacher my love their students, but some may think twice before acting in a harmful situation. This hesitation, if even for a second, can cost the lives of more people than good that it could bring. Schools are safer with policemen, not enough to stop a mentally ill person from getting in, but to stop violence in school. Even though the shooting in Newton was horrible, not all shootings are going to be like this one. Teaching teachers to shoot will cost more then, the actual cost of getting a police officer to guard to school grounds.
Police officers will always be on top of their game in any harmful situation, this is their main priority keeping people safe. Police officers will be more alert on school shooting and the extra security installed will help prevent violence in the schools. Police officers are trained to be in stressful situations; and in case of a shooting, most teachers will not have the proper mental strength to pull the trigger. Over all a police officer will be able to act and live with whatever happens. Teachers will not be able to handle the situation as will, and for us to ask them for that is just wrong.
