Guns in the hands of inexperienced handlers could threaten not only teachers, but also students. Educators carrying firearms in school would cause more harm than good.

Students would have a hard time developing a relationship with their teacher when they know that the teacher is carrying. For the façade of safety, these guns would introduce a difficult dynamic in the classroom and ultimately compromise students education.

Without proper training the teachers could easily add to the chaos instead of helping to resolve it. Some say that with proper training this issue could be resolved, but what they don’t realize is that this training would be very expensive and school’s budgets are already stretched extremely thin. The money that would go to that training could instead go towards giving out scholarships, upgrading learning facilities, paying teachers more, and hiring more mental health professionals like counselors.

Finally, the close proximity to a gun would provide kids with easy access to a firearm. If a teacher left their weapon on a desk or didn’t have it fastened properly to themselves a kid could easily take it.

The solution to the school shooting problem should not be one that creates more risk and endangers more innocent students.

Students should not have to sacrifice a positive school experience and their trust in faculty for their own safety, especially when adding more guns has the potential to hurt more people than it saves. I would urge my fellow students and faculty to watch the news and when laws like this are made contact their local representatives and encourage them to vote against these proposals.