Summary: In response to Trump's suggestion that teachers be armed and given bonuses, an economics teacher from Tampa, Florida, argues that that is not the solution and the money going towards training teachers to fight should be going towards better mental health programs and counselors and resources for troubled students. He is also concerned that troubled students or other employees could take the gun and it would make it easier for them to harm other students. He is angry that while many other educational resources have been cut due to a lack of funds, Trump is willing to fund teachers to become armed. While he also owns a gun and believes in the Second Amendment, he also believes that "adding tools of violence to an environment that is trying to prevent violence is counterintuitive."
Opinion: I agree with him that more money should be going towards mental health resources rather than training teachers, because school is supposed to be a safe and educational environment for people to learn rather than a place that promotes violence. While I would feel safer knowing that teachers are trained to fight, I am worried that the guns will fall into the wrong hands and I am not sure how I would feel about teachers carrying guns in class. Perhaps as a compromise each school could have a few police officers assigned to them and constantly on duty there.
Questions: Would you feel comfortable having teachers carrying guns? Do you think the money should go towards training teachers to fight or mental health resources? What other solutions do you think will be able to make schools safer?
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/opinions/teacher-im-supposed-to-transform-from-an-economics-teacher-into-a-gun-expert-tillman/index.html
6 comments:
I have similar feelings considering this issue. I really don't think teachers should be armed, and like you said, maybe having more resource officers per school would be a way to get more protection. I feel like if teachers have guns, it is a lot easier for students to access them. Furthermore, the costs of getting teachers to be trained and then equipping them with guns will probably be very high. I feel like adding more guns to the country is not going to help the problem of gun violence in America at all. I found this article: (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/23/17041662/armed-teachers-gun-violence-mass-shootings) which discusses findings made by Harvard such as, "places with more guns have more gun deaths." This seems to make sense intuitively, yet there are still people like those belonging to the NRA that believe that somehow, more guns will lead to more protection and safety. I just hope that policymakers will do their research before making policies regarding guns...
As much as I trust my teachers, I would never be able to truly feel comfortable with any of my teachers being armed while teaching. As Michelle, even if the teacher is possessing the gun, it's possible for it to fall into the hands of a student, as it is easy for them to get, and that may increase the number of school shootings, rather than decrease it. The money should definitely go towards mental health resources, over training teachers to fight, because if we are able to reduce the violent actions of the mentally ill, there will be no need to train teachers to fight. Protecting the security and safety of themselves and their students should not be a worry that teachers have when they go to school every morning to teach. If anything, the money should go towards mental health resources, but even this would not be too effective, as most that are mentally ill are not violent. However, the best use for this money may be for stronger background checks for better gun control.
I would never feel comfortable with my teachers having access to guns during the school day. While the teacher may obtain the gun, there is a chance that it could fall into the wrong hands. A student could possibly take the gun and use it against their fellow classmates and teachers. This would only increase fear in schools and school shootings as the root of the problem, guns, is basically given to them. I think that money should be put towards protection in schools, so possibly increasing security on campus. It should also be put towards mental health as that has played a role in many school shootings. Mental health is not necessarily responsible for the shootings, so I think that main concern is guns.
In accordance with Emily, Keertana, and Allie, I, too, would not feel comfortable with my teachers being equipped with guns on campus. With more guns on campus, I believe that the chance of a a violent outcome would be greater than if there were fewer guns on campus. I think mental health resources are underfunded in many educational institutions - I've heard many experiences of those in college who also believe their mental health resources are subpar.
I also would not feel comfortable with my teachers being armed with guns. Having a gun on campus would make me extremely nervous not because I think that the teachers would be irresponsible with them, but because students might be able to access them. As many above have said, the guns could fall into the wrong hands. Rather than protecting students, I feel that it just puts them at risk. Also, there would likely be a rise in paranoia at school. This doesn't help us when we are trying to build safe campuses for students. Although I don't think mental health is solely responsible for recent shootings, it would help to put more money into those resources. Paying to put guns in the hands of untrained teachers is not the right way to go.
I definitely would not feel comfortable knowing my teachers were carrying a gun around throughout the school day. I personally don't think it's the teachers job to protect us, their job is to teach us. I think if Trump really wants to protect us then he should invest more in security companies that already has people who are trained, instead of training every single teacher and spending even more money on funding training programs for them and guns. Also like everyone else said, the guns could fall into the wrong hands, or maybe some of the teachers themselves aren't able to handle that. I'm assuming most of us have heard cases of teachers who do certain things because they aren't mentally stable, so I don't really see the logic in giving guns to teachers because they could be mentally unstable themselves. At this point, it seems like people just want to fight fire with fire.
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