Gun control has been a heated debate in America for decades; however, the argument that has gained traction after the devastating tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School is armed teachers. A growing number of kindergarten through twelfth grade schools have adopted concealed carry  policies (the practice of carrying a hidden firearm on one's person in public) to protect their students from harm. These policies have drawn support and criticism from both sides of the gun control debate. Those that are opposed claim that introducing firearms into the school environment will cause an unnecessary distraction and will lead to accidental shootings. Supporters argue these policies have the potential to save dozens of lives and possibly reduce the number of active shooter events. Despite violent crime rates across the country dropping in the last several decades, active shooter events have become more common according to an FBI report (Blair). A federal law allowing concealed carry in schools will reduce the number of deaths as well as the frequency of active shooter events on school grounds.

The goal of a concealed carry policy is to deter an active shooter from choosing the school as a target. This is commonly known as a hard target. The idea behind a hard target is that the risk of attacking one is too great. The reason why it is necessary to still arm teachers is in case the shooter ignores the signs. Teachers with a concealed weapon are more of a fail-safe than a first line of defense. In order to take full advantage of the deterrence theory when adopting a concealed carry policy, schools should replace gun free zone signs with warnings about how teachers are authorized to use force to protect students. In addition to locked doors, security cameras, and school resource officers (SRO), firearms can deter an active shooter. 

Due to the absence of a federal law, the issue has been left to the state governments. This has led to a spectrum of differing laws concerning concealed carry. Some states ban concealed carry entirely, whereas some allow concealed carry in all public areas. Most states allow concealed carry, but leave the issue of carrying on school grounds to the individual school districts. Each school district has a slightly different approach. The Okay Public School District in Oklahoma allows teachers to carry on school grounds. According to the district’s superintendent Charles McMahan roughly five percent of teachers at Okay Public Schools are carrying a concealed firearm. Though not without any restrictions according to a Huffington Post article in order for a teacher to be allowed to carry they must have

 “a concealed carry permit, teachers participating in the program must have a certificate from Oklahoma’s Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, receive a psychiatric evaluation and take a shooting course three times a year. Participating teachers must have their weapon on them or secured in a lockbox, according to the policy. The guns must be .45 caliber or less. And McMahan said they must be ‘name brand’ guns (Murdock).” 

In addition to allowing teachers to carry they have posted signs warning any would be shooter that their staff are armed and allowed to use force to protect their students. Another example is New Life Baptist Academy in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their reasoning behind their policy is summed up by Lillie Allen, the school’s principal, when she says “I know there are many, many parents that they’re so against anything that’s violent, but come into the real world there’s violence here (Vice).” The Pastor and superintendent of New Life Academy, Larry Allen, is an ex-state police officer and continues to run the school with a similar mindset. All students in the K-12 schools go through what they call “active shooter training,” which is a drill that is carried out similar to a fire drill. In addition to the drill, a group of upperclassmen are selected to be part of the Pastor’s Warriors. This group gets trained to respond if there is ever a real treat. When fourteen year old Jasmine Jarmillo was asked for her opinions on the group she said, “At first I was nervous I didn’t want to be one, but then I learned it makes you feel safer knowing what to do if you’re in a situation like that (Vice).” The Warriors are taught a swarm and disarm strategy; however, they are more of a fail-safe. The school also has at least five handguns divided between the teachers (who has one is kept secret) along with armed guards (also ex-police) who assist the Pastor in teaching the Pastor’s Warriors. The school’s approach to a potential active shooter event might seem a bit extreme, but regardless it is hard to deny the school is hardly a soft target.

New Life Baptist Academy’s policy on concealed carry and responding to an active shooter event is more likely to stop or even prevent a shooting than the Okay Public School District. The one aspect that both schools can improve upon is the training of faculty who are allowed to carry. Any twenty-one year old can get a carry permit and a handgun. An NRA approved concealed carry class is the bare minimum needed to obtain a permit; however, the training should not stop there. This is especially vital to teachers; since they are not only protecting themselves, but are responsible for the safety of their students. There should be a separate concealed carry class for teachers that results in a separate permit. The permit test and training should take elements from IDPA competitions. IDPA, or International Defensive Pistol Association, is a form of pistol competition that puts competitors through situations meant to test their abilities in self-defense situations. For example, a course might require you to go through a home hitting both stationary and moving targets. This training is similar to what police first responders obtain. This would also be a voluntary decision to enroll in this course. If the training as well as carrying a firearm was mandatory, an anti-gun teacher may not feel comfortable keeping the firearm on their person and leave it where a student could get it. Keeping concealed carry optional would keep firearms in the hands of experienced and knowledgeable shooters, thus reducing the likelihood of an accidental shooting.

Many people claim that it is too dangerous to introduce a weapon into the school environment and that a student is more likely to be killed in an accidental shooting than in an active shooter event. That is what Sarah Buck, Erica Yurvati, and Drake Dallas proposed in their paper “Teachers with Guns: Firearms Discharges by Schoolteachers, 1980-2012.” They found a total of thirty cases in which teachers shot another person, on or off school grounds, between the years 1980 and 2012. Out of these thirty cases there were thirty-five total victims with twenty-six deaths (Buck 6). Their main argument is that these casualties are evidence that arming teachers and faculty in schools would leave to more shootings. Although what they studied is not representative of what they are claiming. In the source they even write “The teacher accidentally discharged his or her gun in only one case. In that incident, one person (a bystander) was struck and injured (Buck 6).” So their claim of these thirty cases are evidence that armed teachers will cause more accidental deaths than an active shooter is without warrant, since there was zero accidental deaths at the hands of teachers in the time span of the study. Even so during the thirty-two years of the study there was thirty-five casualties by teachers, but there was eighty-nine casualties in mass shootings in 2015 alone (Active Shooter Incidents). This further supports the theory that arming teachers will lessen the destruction of an active shooter.

Another solution that is often suggested is an australian style gun ban. Anti-gun activists are quick to bring up Australia’s gun ban and their absence of mass shooting. They use a simple syllogism of Australia banned guns, Australia hasn’t had a mass shooting since, a gun ban must be the answer to America's gun violence. The problem is supporters of a gun ban aren’t looking below the surface. It is true if mass shootings were the only crime committed in the world a gun ban would be a perfect solution, sadly this is a fantasy. The problem is by removing firearms, the deterrence effect is also removed. Also, mass shootings are unique in that they are committed with almost exclusively legally obtain firearms; however, this is not the case for most violent crimes. So a gun ban would be effective at stopping mass shootings, but with the deterrence effect removed other violent crimes will skyrocket. This increase will cause more deaths than the absence of mass shooting will save.  This is evident if you study the homicide (manslaughter and murder) rates of countries with gun bans. 

Look at this study of Britain’s handgun ban done by the Crime Prevention Research Center, after Britain banned handguns their homicide rate reached a peak of eighteen homicides per million people. The highest point pre-ban was only thirteen homicides per million people, that is an increase of thirty-eight percent. Despite the fact that the homicide rate dropped dramatically, starting around 2002 it still never went below the lowest point pre-ban. Also this drop can be attributed to increase in police over the time of the decline in the homicide rate as demonstrated when the graph above is compared with a graph of the number of law enforcement during the time of the study.(Murder and Homicide Rates before and after Gun Bans)

This data is also supported by graphs depicting the homicide rates in other countries with gun bans.

This demonstrates how while a gun-ban may lessen the number of school shootings, the increase in other crimes with cover the difference making it an ineffective solution to the problem. Allowing concealed carry in schools would reduce the number of shootings without raising nationwide crime rates.

An issue that has largely been ignored is schools in rural areas where police response time in a crisis may be ten or more minutes. One of the first schools to adopt a concealed carry policy was the Harrold Independent School District in a rural part of Texas were police response time would be close to twenty minutes is there was an emergency. When interviewed on the subject of concealed carry in schools Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers said “You cannot substitute for the years of training that armed police officers get. They just can’t substitute for that (Vice)” However, what good can even the best armed, most well trained, and best funded police force do when they are not there. According to FBI data sixty-seven percent of all active shooter events end before police arrive, with seventy percent of incidents over in less than five minutes(A Study of Active Shooter Incidents). In a school district like Harrold a shooter could come in murder a couple dozen students and leave before the police even arrived. Law Enforcement cannot be a school’s only line of defense. 

In summary, arming teachers has been a heated debate ever since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. Afterwards there were many cries to ban gun ownership in the United States, often citing Australia’s gun ban and their absence of mass shootings; however, most were ignorant of the resulting thirty eight percent increase in homicides after Britain's gun-ban. Next was accidental shootings and the misconception that accidental deaths were more likely than deaths at the hands of an active shooter. In reality over the course of a thirty-two year study there were zero accidental deaths at the hands of a teacher, whereas the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting claimed twenty-seven lives. Finally, the issue of response times being longer than the average length of a shooting in rural areas. Plainly as anyone can see the best solution to the problem is arming teachers in order to protect America’s students.
