Should Teachers Carry Fire Arms?

The world was shocked and horrified to hear about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  In North America alone, over thirty school shootings in the United States and over ten in Canada have happened.  It is a story that has repeated itself way too many times.  After every one of those shootings, debates about fire arms laws were raised. A new debate about how to prevent our children from being hurt in a school setting has been raised. Should teachers’ carry fire arms? In my opinion I do not agree with the fact that teachers should have guns on them. I will talk about how school and society can try to prevent those terrible shootings from happening and I will also talk about why I believe teachers should not carry guns.

I completely disagree, that teacher should carry fire guns on them or have them in the classroom. I take in consideration that with the sad events of the past years, citizens of North America would like more protection in school; however, I do not believe guns in school are the solution to stop those events from happening.  I think there are many ways schools could ameliorate their security systems. School could hire security guards, nowadays many universities, malls and stadiums have security guards. Schools should regulate the visitors coming in the school and also regulate all the doors in the school. For example in my elementary school, all the doors would be locked from the outside during classes and with that being said the only entry available to the school was the door by the main office. The secretary could monitor who was coming in, and visitors would need a valid reason to be in the school. Another idea to protect our children is that school could have a panic button in every class. The panic button would be there so that if anything happened, the teacher could press the button and it would automatically lock the doors and call the police. I believe that teachers could carry pepper spray instead of guns.  Society could try to prevent those events from happening if they target individuals that have the profile to do those horrible things. They are often loners and have mental illnesses.

I believe that it is not a teacher’s role to carry a fire arm on them. Teachers do not have the proper training to use a fire arm. Some teachers might be uncomfortable with having to carry a weapon on them. I do agree and strongly believe that it is our job to protect students in all time; however, I believe there are other ways to protect them. School should be a safe environment to learn in, it should not be a place to be afraid of. With that being said, I believe that by carrying guns teachers send the message that you should be afraid of being there.  I also believe that it sends a message of violence.  In today’s society video games with extreme violence involving guns and other weapons are quite popular among children; therefore, some kids do not always know the difference between reality and the fantasy world of those video games. Teachers should take in consideration that a child might think that their gun is just a toy and grab it especially for younger grades. I strongly disagree that teachers should carry fire arms.