The topic of arming our nation’s teachers with guns on school campuses has been a continuous conversation tossed around for a long time. This has been a heated topic because many people have concerns and issues with this idea due to the possible dangers an armed teacher might bring into the picture of safety of students, but with even more recent school shootings occurring in our nation, I believe that this needs to be brought up more and considered much more often.

I am not here to cause any additional drama towards the subject, but I wish to address this topic once more in its lengthy and constant conversation because of my own personal concern about student safety in our current present and future. I don’t mean to undermine, offend, or attack anyone or anyone’s opinion within this article, and I apologize if I do such a thing.

In my personal opinion, I believe that teachers should be armed and carry firearms on their actual person at all times due to the increased amount of school shootings that the entire nation is experiencing. Our nation entirely has experienced an annual average of 87 shootings, leaving an average of 28 dead and 60 wounded in each event. According to the U.S. department of Education, there were 11 to 75 school shootings with injuries or deaths at public and private elementary and secondary schools each year from 2000 to 2020, then 75 between 2019-20 alone. This is quite a concerning rate to have and this is why I believe teachers should have firearms during school hours.

I believe there should be stricter gun ownership laws and harsher penalties for misuse of firearms.  If we are to give teachers firearms overall, then we need to have stricter gun laws with better screenings to see who is able to own a firearm. These processes should include extensive background checks that include previous occupations, crimes, and anything else that could affect the use of a firearm from minor to major; next mental evaluations to see if that those who are looking to purchase a firearm are stable and have been stable for a length of time so there is no risk of a firearm being misused in any sense; and a screening the same day of purchase.

Finally, penalties and crimes for firearm misuse should be increased a lot more then they currently are and be much more harsh so that its instilled into people about firearms and the intense harm and scenarios that it could affect multiple communities and different people. Unfortunately, this is still a very heated and ongoing conversation topic, but a topic which needs to be addressed now, rather than later. Action needs to happen for our schools and for student safety.