CW1 Podcast

The podcast discusses the topic of school shootings and whether teachers should be armed to prevent them. It highlights the fear that parents have regarding school shootings and the increasing number of incidents. The idea of arming teachers is explored, with the pros including the potential to stop a shooter quickly, especially in rural areas with slower police response times, and the deterrent effect of armed teachers. However, there are also cons, such as concerns about changing the school environment and safety risks associated with firearms. The podcast advises parents to inquire about their school district's security plans and weigh the pros and cons to make the best decision for their child's safety. Hello and welcome back to Parenting 101, where we talk all things parenting, all the time. And today we're going to be taking on a kind of heavy topic, but a very important topic. So I would suggest not having the kiddos around for this one. We're going to be taking a seat, getting relaxed, get comfortable, and we will get into it. So today's topic we will be discussing is school shootings, and particularly we're going to be asking ourselves, should teachers in schools be armed to prevent school shootings? And we will also be looking at what would be best and what is right for your child. So we're going to be going through the different pros and cons so you can decide what is best for your little one. So the word school shooting, or the word school shooting, strikes fear into every parent's heart. The idea of dropping your kids off at school in the morning and not being able to pick them up is extremely terrifying. In 2024, as of February 16th, there were already 12 school shootings, with 9 being from K-12 campuses and 3 being from college campuses. There were 82 school shootings in 2023. A study from Arizona State University shows that these mass killings involving guns are often incited by similar incidents of the same nature, meaning that one school shooting can often lead to other people becoming inspired and creating the same act. The study found that the event is contagious for an average of 13 days, and that each incident incites at least 0.3 new incidents. So it is extremely scary, and it's just getting worse, and parents and students want to know what is being done to protect their children. One of the ideas being floated around, and that has actually been implemented in many different places already, is arming teachers. This idea was introduced by the National Rifle Association in 2012, following the Sandy Hook school shooting. As of 2021, though, however, there are at least 466 school districts in 19 different states that allow non-enforcement staff members, so non-student resource officers, at schools to be armed. And this figure may even be higher, because schools in many states are not required to report their decision to armed teachers to the Department of Education, meaning that it is very important that you as a parent contact your school and ask them what their security plan is, because it may not even be public knowledge. So let's talk about some of the pros and cons of arming teachers. So some of the pros include, of course, the main one, which is a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, and if a teacher in every single classroom has a gun, then no matter where a school shooting starts in the building, there would be someone very close by who would be able to stop it before the casualties got larger or before it got worse than it already had been. Law enforcement, such as student resource officers, are not always able to be everywhere in the school at the same time, and may be in a different area of the school and not able to get there in time to stop the shooting. Similarly with law enforcement officials, in a situation where moments and seconds are extremely precious, this is especially useful in rural areas where police response can take from 10 minutes to up to 30 minutes, and that is also where you will see a lot of the concentration of these schools who have armed teachers is in rural and more conservative areas, as it benefits them and fits their needs more. One of the most positive benefits, though, is not even stopping school shootings once they've already started, but rather preventing and deterring them from happening in the first place. A lot of these schools which arm teachers will have signage displayed throughout the school that says that our teachers are armed and that if you would like to commit a school shooting, you would not be very successful and you would not be very effective with it, which deters a lot of people from doing so, and it is very much worth noting that no school with teachers and non-enforcement staff members armed has so far become a victim of a school shooting. So now we are going to look into some of the cons of arming teachers, and one of the main ones is changing the nature and environment of schools. Schools are intended to be a place for students to learn and where they should feel safe, and there are many teachers that fear it can create feelings of fear or anger among students or even inadvertently communicate to them that this is not a safe space in which they can communicate freely. There have also been a plethora of new safety concerns brought into the mix in arming teachers. This includes numerous accounts of student resource officers leaving their guns unattended, and this could be a much, much worse situation where there are tens of staff members who have firearms who could possibly leave it anywhere for students to grab and to use themselves. There have also been multiple situations in which teachers have abused this power and even threatened to shoot or harm some of the students by using this weapon. There have also been multiple occasions of accidental firearm discharges which have led to harm to not only students, teachers, and property damage. Many teachers also worry about the possibility of a larger student overpowering them and taking their gun from them and then using it to harm other students or a teacher. So what is the best option for your kid? What should you look for when looking at a school district to find out what is the safest and most enriching environment for your child? So let's just quickly summarize some of the things that we talked about earlier so that you can make that final decision on what is best for your child. So for arming teachers, our pros are that it works best in rural settings, and then it can prevent and deter other school shootings. So if you live in a very rural area that is quite far away from a hospital, from a police station, and you know that if something were to happen, it would take a long time for either of those entities to get to you, then it may be important to ask your school district if they do have a program for arming teachers or to inquire about that, or even to look at a new school district who does offer what you and your child would need. Arming teachers, however, does come with a new slew of safety concerns, so please make sure you are speaking with your school district to discuss what they are doing to mitigate these extra safety concerns and keep these guns that are in the school building away from people who are not supposed to have them. And if your school district does not arm teachers, make sure to also still ask what their security procedures and their plans are in case of a school shooting, or what they are doing to prevent otherwise, what these other methods are, so you know that you are getting the best safety and that you can feel comfortable dropping your kid off at school in the morning. I truly hope that this podcast helps some of our parents out there today so that they can have a better idea of this issue and help make that best decision for their kiddos. Next week we will be talking about Red 40 and food and whether it is safe for your kid, so please make sure to tune in and I will see you guys later.