IN the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States — committed by a white 19-year-old with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing 14 students and three school staff members in Parkland, Florida — survivors, their families, students from other schools around the country, and stricter gun laws and regulations advocates protested in the streets to demand for solutions from President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers to solve the problem of gun violence and mass shooting epidemic in the country.
They demand a ban on assault weapons, a deadly firearm invented NOT for civilians but for military purposes in the war zone. They also demand that politicians should not accept any more money from the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), which has been behind all lobby efforts to stop any meaningful stricter gun laws and regulations.
For his part, Trump conducted a “listening session” with some survivors of the mass shooting and their families to hear about their horrific experiences and how the problem of gun violence, especially in schools where innocent children and civilians had been targeted, should be solved.
After this “listening session,” Trump talked about strengthening the implementation of universal background checks, increasing mental health support and resources, ending the sale of bump stocks — an accessory that turns semiautomatic weapons into guns that closely simulated automatics in firing almost a hundred bullets in seconds.
Trump initially suggested raising the legal age to buy and use a gun from 18 to 21. But as of Friday morning, February 23 and after the NRA has openly rejected this measure, he did not include this proposal but instead pushed even harder on arming teachers with guns to solve gun violence and mass shootings in schools.
“A teacher would have a concealed gun on them. They’d go for special training and they would be there and you would no longer be a gun-free zone,” Trump said, adding that the teachers would receive bonuses for this responsibility.
Trump also suggested that an armed teacher on campus could reach a school shooter faster than responding police officers. “You’d have a lot of people that would be armed, that’d be ready.”
Trump’s suggestion and rationale echo the myth promoted by Wayne LaPierre, leader of the powerful NRA —“the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
This proposal has been rejected by many teachers themselves, students, parents, gun violence experts, educators, and school safety advocates. Teachers say the government should give them classrooms, books, teaching materials, resources, funding, equitable salary, and benefits to help them give better education to their students and NOT guns.
Dr. David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an expert on the public health impact of gun violence, told NBC News that this is a crazy idea.
“So what should we do about reducing airline hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?” he asked.
Hemenway has done extensive research on guns and concluded that it boils down to access to weapons. “The evidence is overwhelming, starting at the home. A gun in the home increases the risk that people in the home will die. That’s because there’s more suicides, more gun accidents, and more homicides.”
In an article in Stanford News, Stanford Law School professor John Donohue found that states that adopted right-to-carry laws have experienced a 13 to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws.
Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told NBC News that this is a “colossally stupid idea.”
“If having more guns in more places made Americans safer, then we would have the lowest rates of gun violence in any developed country in the world, and the exact opposite is true,” Gardiner said.
“There could be instances of real confusion that would lead to tragedy if we had more guns in more classrooms,” Gardiner contended. “What about the time the teacher accidentally leaves the gun unlocked in the desk drawer, and it’s picked up by a student? Think about the burden on schools to make sure the teachers are safe to carry guns. Who’s doing that checking and monitoring and retraining?”
Brian Levin, a former officer with the New York Police Department and now a criminal justice professor at California State University, San Bernardino, told NBC News that in the heat of the moment, it’s too easy to misfire. He told about how early in his career, he almost shot an unarmed man fleeing a shooting scene.
“Often times when you’re having an adrenaline-filled situation, you’re not sure who the target is,” Levin pointed out. This supports what many experts argue that “even with proper firearms training, to expect a teacher to be able to shoot down an attacker — and not accidentally injure anyone else”.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TRUMP’S PROPOSAL? Should we arm teachers to prevent mass shootings in school? Are more guns the solution to the worsening gun violence problem in America?
