The College Fix

Is this really that hard?

Carol Markowicz at The New York Post is right: school shooter drills “terrorize our kids pointlessly.” There is very little merit to them. The likelihood of being in a school shooting is vanishingly rare; schools are in fact safer than they have been in decades. Shooter drills serve only to stress children out while preparing them for an eventuality that will almost certainly never come. And in any case, in the freakishly rare instance of an actual school shooting, it is highly unlikely that the training will have even been necessary (it is not at all difficult to “shelter in place,” after all, which is what the drills invariably teach children).

Here is a better suggestion: Let qualified, trained teachers carry firearms. There is essentially no reason that vetted, well-disposed instructors at the primary, secondary and collegiate levels cannot carry concealed weapons while they teach. It would obviously be a more effective line of defense than simply locking the door and hiding under the desk; and in the end it would almost certainly serve as a deterrent against shooters looking for an easy mark (there is a reason shooters virtually never attack police stations or military bases).

The usual objections to such a plan—“It will be more dangerous,” “Teachers shouldn’t be armed, this isn’t a warzone”—are based on nothing more than speculation and ideology, respectively. For one, there is no evidence that armed teachers pose a risk to innocent students; and secondly, carrying a weapon to protect oneself and one’s students does not turn a school into a “warzone.” A gun, properly construed, is simply a technological extension of the right of self-defense. If you would use your fists against an attacker, you’re already conceding that right; a gun is simply another way of defending oneself.

Scrap the drills. Allow teachers and college professors—those who have passed background checks, gone through rigorous training, and who are regularly re-trained and re-certified at least twice yearly—to carry. It’s not rocket science.

MORE: Students petition president: Let university police carry firearms

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