Arming Teachers to Reduce School Violence: A Truly Foolish Proposal
The pundits and media actually taking to arm teachers seriously should be asking themselves whether any hair-brained idea is newsworthy. One thing is clear, Beers and his supporters have not provided any real evidence of an increase in school violence to warrant such an immodest proposal. That’s probably because there is no evidence to support an up trend in school violence (even just gun-related violence). In fact, the evidence as detailed below points to the contrary–that in most cases–school violence has been trending DOWN since 1992, which would indicate that efforts to reduce school violence are working. (And let’s not even ask for evidence showing that arming teachers would actually act as a deterrent to school violence–that doesn’t exist either.)
Resolutions for such complex problems like decreasing school violence should always be accompanied by research so that solutions are reality based. And while any school violence is never acceptable, citing newspaper articles from the past year does not constitute evidence of a trend. So, how about we do something revolutionary and begin with the evidence as presented in the annual joint report published by and “” which covers crime on a national level among 12-18 year olds from 2004-2005 (plus some additional longitudinal data)? By the way, The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) are the primary federal entities for collecting, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating statistical information about education and crime at all levels of the government.
Some highlights from the report:
- In each school year, youth were over 50 times more likely to be murdered and almost 150 times more likely to commit suicide when they were away from school than at school. (p. 6)
- The percentage of youth homicides occurring at school remained at less than 2 percent of the total number of youth homicides over all survey years. (p. 6)
- Between 1992 and 2004, the victimization rates for students ages 12–18 generally declined both at school and away from school. (p. 10-11)
- The percentage of students who were threatened or injured with a weapon fluctuated between 1993 and 2005 without a clear trend. In all survey years from 1993 through 2005, between 7–9 percent of students reported being threatened or injured in this way. (p. 17)
And since charts are always helpful when considering longitudinal trends, you can review prepared from the same report.
The real story is not violence in our schools, but violence in our society. Arming teachers will not prevent violence in schools. In the best case, it will accomplish absolutely nothing except communicating to our children that they cannot be trusted in the one place outside their home they should be. In the worst case, it could actually increase gun-related school violence as increasing the number of guns in any place usually does. The facts are that children are in far more danger outside of school than they are in school (Introduction p. 1), and anyone serious about solving the problem of youth-related violence in school will begin there. But Beers and his supporters are not serious about preventing school violence or they would present a serious proposal based on evidence. The violence outside our schools bleeds into them, not the other way around. If people like Beers and his ilk do not acknowledge the actual source of the problem and begin there, then we cannot accept them as serious no matter how much press their foolish proposals receive.
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[...] Todd Zuccato is right. I concentrated on showing the lack of evidence for rising crime in schools rather than debunking any evidence that arming teachers would reduce school crime (which would have been hard since you yourself concede that there really isn’t any), my aim was to demonstrate that we shouldn’t be open to solutions for problems that aren’t problems–namely–the non-existent rise in school crime. I’m going to assume that Todd is not disputing the NCES and Bureau of Justice statistics (that would be fruitless since they are pretty much the definitive numbers on school crime). Any crime in schools is a problem, but the hysteria created by pundits over school crime without any basis in fact drives me nuts and prevents us from finding solutions that work. [...]
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Thank you, Minx, for pulling these stats together.
“…it could actually increase gun-related school violence as increasing the number of guns in any place usually does”
I would love for you to have some credible evidence for that other than your guesses.
Ah, Minx. An entire article with about how bad guns would be in schools, without a shred of evidence to support it. Once again, I will give you evidence, and once again you will tell me my evidence isn’t good enough, without providing any of your own, but here it is.
Check out the The Lott-Mustard Report, which outlines how crime decreases when restrictions on CCW are lightened. There is no hard evidence to say how guns in schools would work out, because it’s never been tried. At least I can give you evidence of how guns outside of schools have slowed violence. And those great stats you show about decreases in violence coincide with less restrictive CCW laws. I challange you to produce one ANY evidence that concealed weapon permits increase violence.
Don’t confuse the issues with logic and facts, Todd. I for one think that students should be offered hunter safety in school just like sex ed is offered. I would take a guess that a lot of accidental deaths are caused by lack of knowledge with firearms. It doesn’t matter if you own a gun or not you should learn how to respect a firearm.
I wonder how many people realize that as long as a weapon is not concealed it is legal to carry it in Reno.
I think you are very right about gun related accidents. That’s why classes are required to get a CCW. I’m by no means advocating that every Tom, Dick, and Harry having a gun is the solution to violence. I am advocating weapons for those responsible people with knowledge of the weapon they hold.
Jailers and cops don’t carry in booking areas because they’ve learned such confined areas give them–trained gun handlers–the greatest chance of being shot. Did you know the great majority of street cops never discharge their weapon while on-duty–not once in a 20-25 year career? Columbine and other school shootings never made me want to arm teachers, it made me realize there are angry people of all ages living among us, which supports Myrna’s spot-on closing.