Arming School Personnel Reasons Against Essay

Tags: education educational system liability safety school school safety school shootings school violence teacher training

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Gun violence in America doesn’t appear to be going anywhere soon, and deadly rampages have seemed to squeeze their way in the experience of American life. What was once a monstrosity and a horror have all becomes episodes that citizens of this country have all resignedly become accustomed to. Many sociologists have noted that a bizarre desensitization has swept over Americans along with a certain helplessness. Perhaps of all the school shootings of the last ten years, none of them have felt as tragic as Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook’s shooter took the lives of over 25 children, all between the ages of six and seven—truly the most innocent lives and an act that would devastate their parents for years to come, perhaps even for the rest of their lives. When acts of violence hurt so many people, many ask what can be done and what should be done. Arming teachers and training school personnel has long been something suggested—often by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and others who have a vested interest in getting firearms in the hands of the average population. However, this paper will explore why arming educators and other school personnel is a terrible idea and not a solution for solid policy.

One of the main reasons why arming teacher or a even a small portion of school personnel is a bad idea is because it is financially untenable. Public education in America is already underfunded in large parts of the nation. Our students lag behind countries all over the world, often in a very significant and embarrassing way. Paying to train and arm teachers on a yearly basis would cripple our educational system. In fact, a report drafted tin 2013 to assess the cost of putting an armed school resource officer in every elementary and secondary school all over the nation too into account variations of salary, student size, and number of hours working found that the costs would be astronomical (Rajan et al., 861). Based on all these factors, “the cost would range from $19.1 to $22.6 billion annually, which accounts for nearly 30% of the current federal education budget (reported by the National Center for Education Statistics to be $78.9 billion). The United States currently has an estimated 3.1 million full-time teachers. Arming even 20% of them, as recently suggested by the White House, would result in similarly significant increases in the federal budget” (Rajan et al., 861). This demonstrates that arming teachers is so out of reach for the country financially, it shouldn’t even be discussed.

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Based on these figures, one can clearly see that arming teachers would just drown the country further into debt. This would be a cavalier and irresponsible expenditure, particularly given the fact that so many inner city schools don’t even have enough books.

Another argument against arming teachers is the fact that to do so would bring weapons into school and eventually one of those weapons will find its way into the hands of a child (James, 13). Any adult knows that children have a way of getting into things that their parents don’t want them to. Just ask any parent with a safe, a locked liquor cabinet, locked file cabinets, car keys hidden away, or just about any other item that is hidden or locked away with codes and sensors. Virtually any adult who has spent a reasonable amount of time around kids will readily admit that they find a way to get into things. To think that this would be any different in the case of armed teachers and armed school personnel, is completely delusional. The reason for this is that teenagers and children understand the fallibility of the human being. Young people know that there will be a moment when the adults around them let their guard down or aren’t being careful or vigilant and that is when they will get the firearm into their own hands. Thus, you can install metal detectors in the school, search the cars of the adolescents as they are parked in the parking lot—such moves are futile for a student who is intent on getting a hold of a firearm. “However, those same students will know that they do not need to bring weapons to school, weapons will be there. The only remaining question at that point is how to obtain one of those weapons. It is easy to imagine that the more desire a student has to obtain a weapon, the more violence that student will generate to obtain it” (Crews & Burton, 190). This quote illustrates the clear and present danger involved when there are firearms on school property. All one needs is one instance of adult carelessness or one instance of an adolescent’s calculating violence. Putting firearms in schools could easily create a situation….....

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Works Cited

Crews, Gordon A., et al. \"The Only Thing That Stops a Guy with a Bad Policy is a Guy with a Good Policy: An Examination of the NRA’s “National School Shield” Proposal.\" American Journal of Criminal Justice, vol. 38, no. 2, 2013, pp. 183-199.

James, Bernard. \"Arming school personnel: School Safety Reform & Liability.\" School Safety, Summer 2015.

Rajan, Sonali, and Charles C. Branas. \"Arming Schoolteachers: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go From Here?\" American Journal of Public Health, vol. 108, no. 7, July 2018, pp. 860-862.

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