The definition of teacher in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is listed as “one that teaches; especially: one whose occupation is to instruct.” As the nation continues to respond to the recent school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I do not believe leaving that term unaltered is such a bad idea.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced Sunday evening that it will “work with states on what they called ‘rigorous’ firearms training for ‘specially qualified’ school personnel on a voluntary basis.” The thinking behind this policy is if teachers or other employees were armed, it would deter mass shooters from stepping foot on school campuses.
What about the mass shooting in 2009 in Fort Hood, Texas, or the one in 2013 at the Washington Navy Yard? The fear of a counterattack does not deter mass shooters, because in most cases, they are planning to lose their own life in the first place.
Teachers should not be asked to do anything other than what their occupation asks of them: teach. The responsibilities of the job already reach far beyond teaching, and asking them to take on the same duties of a police force is outrageous. Arming teachers would create a disturbing learning atmosphere for children, and likely lead to parents pulling their kids out of such environments.
Why should we be so quick to assume that even if school personnel undergo the necessary training, they will act as sharpshooters when a threat eventually appears?
A study conducted in 2008 by the Research And Development Corporation found that the New York Police Department, the nation’s largest police force, had a hit rate of only 18 percent during gunfights between 1998 and 2006. Yet we expect teachers, with much less experience in such situations, will valiantly jump into combat with success.
The possibility of an anxious teacher harming children in the process of protecting them is plausible, and so is the possibility of child accidentally getting a hold of their teacher’s gun and hurting themselves or their classmates.
The amount of dangerous scenarios are endless, and they will ultimately lead to a certain demographic — children of color — bearing the greatest burden.
Police officers have taken the lives of black children like 12-year-old Tamir Rice and 18-year-old Michael Brown, and stated fear of the child or a mistaken belief that they were armed as the cause for their actions. If we plan to arm our teachers, it is not hard to imagine similar instances occurring. Just like the police officers, teachers will rarely pay the consequences.
“It does not take a great deal of imagination to contemplate instances in which armed teachers dealing with recalcitrant children will react out of fear and racial stereotype and discharge their weapons as they do the disciplinary code,” wrote Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Time Magazine.
Above all, children should not have to grow up in a country where mass shootings are normal. By arming school teachers, we are painting an ugly picture of the world for our children. We are telling them the only option they have to protect themselves from violence is acting violent in return. The rate of mass shootings in America is not normal, and children should not be raised under the belief that it is.
During a meeting with lawmakers on Feb. 28, Trump called for the minimum age to buy a gun to be raised to 21. He criticized a bill from two U.S. Senators that did not include such a proposal. “You know why, because you’re afraid of the NRA. A lot of people are afraid of that issue — raising the age for that weapon to 21,” Trump said. By failing to immediately call for that age to be raised in the White House’s latest proposals to stop school shootings, Trump may as well have been speaking to himself.
Seth Nieman is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from McComb, Mississippi.
