By Nathan Park

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In response to the numerous recent school shootings, 18 states have proposed bills within their legislatures that would allow staff to carry guns in school. Some state legislators such as Indiana Rep. Jim Lucas, claim that an armed staff would deter shooters from entering the campus. However, using an armed staff is actually ineffective and counterproductive to maintaining a safe learning environment.

It is a known fact that guns have an effect that puts a lot of people on edge. If there are guns present in schools, whether it be in the hands of civilian staff or resource officers, it creates an intimidating environment for students. Instead of focusing on studying, students will be more concerned with their own safety, even though the weapons are meant to enhance it. No amount of gun safety training will take away the anxious tension that a firearm creates in an atmosphere; an edge that will decimate a productive learning environment.

Also, the presence of a deadly force changes the relationship students have with the staff. It makes students see the staff as prison guards and themselves as prisoners. An armed staff will only add to that perception, as having armed personnel is usually associated with attempts to keep prisoners in line and under control.

It is true that the class lead by a teacher with a gun will be the most well-behaved class in the school. Who would want to cross someone with .44 magnum? Though the campus may be more orderly and safer, trust and friendship will be limited between the students and the teachers and school will no longer be a community. Schools should feel like a home, not a prison.

Besides distracting students, an armed staff will actually make an emergency situation more complicated.  If they hold the intruder at gun point, the police may mistake the staff member as another suspect and they could be shot or arrested, especially if there are multiple intruders involved.

Also, there are many civilian staffers that would not be able to shoot an intruder, even if they have to. Taking a life is such a heavy burden to carry that it would make almost anyone hesitate to fire, even if it would save student lives. And if they did take the life of the intruder, they would have to live with the fact that they took a life and most will suffer tremendous guilt over it. “Enabling” school staff this way is just encouraging them to take on a huge responsibility on top of all the stress they have. It is best to let officers, who actually signed up knowing they may have to take a life, handle that kind of decision making.

Lawmakers should also consider that having firearms in school would make it easier for students to get their hands on them, especially in states that allow concealed weapons to be carried. This makes a school shootout that much more likely to happen. All it takes is for those weapons to fall into the wrong hands and they become the very problem they were meant to solve.

To truly keep schools safe, staff members should be trained to disarm intruders, without guns. Teachers in other states have already been learning how to subdue and disarm intruders without weapons in their training courses and that is all they really need to hold them off until the police arrive. Self-defense programs in school should only focus on hand to hand combat and how to avoid the intruder. This way we keep both our staff and students safer, while sparing them the burden of taking a life.

Having guns present in school is only responding to these recent travesties with fear and intimidation. Rather than moving forward from the tragedies, we will be constantly reliving the terror of those shootings. We should not allow violence to make us more violent, but rather push us to become more peaceful. Let us not stoop to the level of these criminals. We do not need guns to keep our children safe. We have to rise above the terror and violence to secure our nation’s future.