In the wake of the latest mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, many people have been scrambling to come up with ideas on how to prevent another tragedy like this from happening. One of the ideas that has become popular is arming teachers, so that they can protect their students in the event of a school shooting. President Trump has been in the news recently as an advocate for this measure, and has recieved a fair amount of criticism for it.
At first glance, this seems like a fairly good idea. If a gunman were to enter a school, having someone that could fire back at them makes sense. If you arm a good person with a gun, it makes all the difference. This perspective seems like a decent idea; however, there are so many other ways to make our school safer than to arm our teachers.
There has been an idea floating around on the internet that makes a lot more sense than arming teachers. Someone proposed the idea of having armed veterans at schools. In America, there are over 400 thousand unemployed veterans, employing them to help protect our children is a win-win for everyone.
Another safety measure that has been discussed is ways to make schools more secure. Spending some money on equipment that can save lives is money well spent. There are companies out there that sell devices that can be placed over doors, making them impenetrable. There are also desks that double as bullet proof barriers. There is technology out there that can make our schools safer without taking as drastic of a measure as arming our teachers.
The thought of arming teachers is ridiculous, but what is even more ridiculous is that we are having this conversation in the first place. The fact of the matter is that there are sick individuals out in the world that want to harm innocent people, we need to come up with better ways to prevent a shooting that don’t resort to arming our teachers.
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