Persuasive Essay: Teachers Should Not Be Guns In Schools

780 Words4 Pages

Students today live their day-to-day lives in constant fear of what seems inevitable. The United States has one of the highests rates of school shootings in the world. Society has become so desensitized to these shootings that they are no longer shocked to hear about another school falling victim to it. Even when students take a stand against gun violence, the only solution offered to them is a proposition to arm teachers. However, bringing more guns into a school will only further deteriorate the situation. Teachers should not be armed in schools because the could not handle a real situation, and the liability is too much of a risk. To elaborate, it is widely agreed that a student’s well-being is a teacher’s concern. For six to eight hours every day for 5 days a week, the life of the student is in the teacher’s hands. However, a teacher has never been expected to arm themself to protect a student until now. Times are changing, but “teachers, crucially, are not self-sacrificing martyrs” (Jaffe). Even with extensive training, a teacher cannot and …show more content…

In the event of a shooting, a teacher may accidentally shoot a teacher, a student, or an officer that is trying to help. During class, a teacher may carelessly leave a gun unattended where a student could get a hold of it. Armed teachers are a safety risk as proved by several recent events. A teacher with a gun attempted suicide in a high school in Dalton, and another injured a student after a gun misfired during a gun safety class. Even a principal, who was a school shooting hero for using his own gun to stop a shooter, is in agreement that it is a safety risk. He hesitated to shoot the shooter, claiming he “did not fire out of fear of hitting someone in the background” (Saul). He knew how to handle a gun, but a less experienced armed teacher would have shot anyway, and they would have risked hurting another