After the shooting at Parkland, many debates have arisen on the topic of guns and gun control. Some people think that teachers should be armed in order to protect students. Some think that guns should be banned altogether. Though I come from a position that is heavily anti-gun and supports stricter guns laws, this article isn’t a pro-gun or anti-gun article. As we commend the bravery of the Parkland survivors and their efforts to start a dialogue about gun policy in this country, we are discussing many solutions to our gun violence problem. The solution to our gun violence problem, however, is not arming teachers.
Paul Tong / Op-Art
There are people who think that in a shooting situation, they can whip their gun out and protect their fellow students and walk away as a hero. This is wrong. I have spoken to gun owners before and when they go to buy their gun, in the process of getting it, they are told that in no situation should they be pulling their own gun out to use it. This means that in a shooting situation, they are NOT to pull out their gun and use it against the shooter. There are many reasons why. Firstly, when you pull out your gun to defend against the shooter, the other people in the shooting do not know that you are one of the “good guys” and they just see two guys with guns. This would cause even greater panic and it would be at the very least hard to explain in such a short moment. Secondly, no matter how skilled you are, can you fully trust yourself to disarm a shooter and protect everyone at the same time? If there is an event where a shooter has made it into a room and has started shooting innocent people, what makes you think that you can protect yourself as well as others in the process of defense? What if you were to accidentally shoot an innocent person? Could you live with that? This leaves the argument of arming other people to protect against bad guys pointless.
(Photo: Elaine Thompson, AP)
This argument could be applied to the whole teachers carrying guns thing as well. I have had many many teachers and I wouldn’t trust 99% of them to carry a gun. My teachers went into teaching to….teach, not to whip out a gun and shoot someone. My teachers didn’t know how to work YouTube, let alone work a semi-automatic weapon. Should people be trusted to protect us only because they are older than us? There are so many risks involved. Again, what if the teacher accidentally shot one of their students in the process of shooting the shooter? What if they didn’t pay much attention to learning how to use a gun, and, when the time comes, they don’t know how to use it? To put my trust completely in such a person would be unwise, and I would most likely end up hurt.
The point of this article wasn’t to scare you or discourage you into thinking that there are no ways to stop a shooting. Gun control is our most feasible option. Guns should not be getting into the hands of unstable people and it certainly shouldn’t be that easy to get a gun. You can be both pro-gun and pro-gun control. Why oppose legislation that makes it harder for unstable people to get guns? Why would that effect you? We don’t want to wait for the next Sandy Hook or Columbine to do something. We need to do something about this now.