Kelly Coons ’22 | Assistant Opinions Editor
A is for apple. B is for book. And G is for… gun? Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to arm U.S. teachers. She claims it will make schools safer by deterring mass shootings, like the one that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six staff members in an elementary school in my home state, Connecticut.
It will not. In fact, I believe that arming teachers will have the opposite effect.
We already know that students of color experience racism in the classroom. The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report this year with the results of their investigation into disproportionate punishment of students. Students of color were more likely to be punished than their white counterparts. Period. This remained true across all types of punishment: suspension, expulsion, arrestment — even corporal punishment. This remains true across all types of schools: public, private, special education and alternative. And pattern occurs across all rates of poverty. Additionally, we already know that people of color are more likely to get shot by police. 250% more likely, the Washington Post reports.
You can add the facts together.
Even in the absence of violence, the effect of guns in the classroom on both students and teachers is immensely detrimental. If a teacher kills someone, even a mass shooter, they can develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Soldiers can develop PTSD, and they are specifically trained and screened to face life-or-death situations. PBS got in contact with a teacher, Mike Conrad, who asked hundreds of students in his (majority white) school if they would feel safer knowing that any teacher were armed. Not one said yes.
This also disregards the possibility that a student could gain access to a teacher’s gun. The National Institute of Justice reports that in 2012, public school students aged 12 to 18 experienced 615,600 incidents of theft. Most of these incidents constituted students stealing from other students, but any gun in the hands of a minor is an unsafe gun. There is a reason why even the National Rifle Association, itself, only supports legal adults owning guns. Even if the child does not intend any harm with the gun, it is still dangerous. Newsweek reports that guns are now the third-leading cause of death for U.S. children. 19 American children are shot each day. 1,297 die each year.
Even if you believe in the narrative of “more good guys with guns,” do you believe in using public funds to make that a reality? Do you believe in taking money away from the nation’s poorest schools to make that a reality, as Betsy DeVos intends, by converting the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act into a pool of NRA money? The New York Times received a statement from the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, Robert C. Scott, that summates my stance: “Redirecting that money to arm teachers and school staff will recklessly endanger the safety of both students and educators, while robbing underserved students of the support and opportunity they deserve.”
