The Newtown, Conn. Board of Education recently voted to post armed security guards in their elementary schools, an initiative that the National Rifle Association has publicly suggested all educational institutions undertake. While it is understandable that Newtown and other communities would like to take precautions against gun violence, this is not the proper answer. Arming more people in general is not the proper answer.
First, this policy will take an emotional toll on many students, particularly in Newtown. Many of the students there are still traumatized, terrified that what happened this past December may happen again. Now they will have to walk by hulking security guards with guns every morning, reminding them not only of the past, but of the terrifying possibilities of a similar event occurring again.
Second, this solution is impractical. If a gunman knows there are armed guards in a school, he will likely try his best to covertly take them out first. Even if the gunman does not know or decides not to go this route, an armed guard is only capable of so much. Even seasoned police officers have trouble effectively shooting at and killing a gunman. And, of course, there is the issue of speed of response: schools are generally sizeable buildings that would take time for a guard to navigate, leaving sufficient opportunity for a gunman to commit a tragic shooting. We have seen this unfortunate result before Columbine High School had an armed guard, yet 13 innocent people still died in the infamous 1999 school shooting.
Then there are the logistical difficulties if this recommendation were to be implemented at a university. One or two guards would not be sufficient in such a case. If someone had a gun in Dartmouth Hall, what good would the armed guard stationed in Baker-Berry Library do? Should Dartmouth post an armed guard in every building with classes? In Collis Center, the Hopkins Center and the Class of 1953 Commons? What about the dorms? The price for the College to employ enough armed guards to protect every facility on campus would be astronomical. Though there is the option of training and arming Safety and Security officers, that still would not ensure that one or many of them could respond fast enough and get to a particular location in time to be successful. Protecting campus from a gunman would become just one of many duties with which they are tasked, so it is entirely possible that an officer could be busy elsewhere in such a situation.
There is also a similar proposition of arming every educator in the country, such that no additional personnel would have to be employed and there would be guns available in almost any location of a school should the need arise. This is an even more ridiculous notion. The answer to gun violence is not more guns. I don't know about you, but knowing that every professor of mine is packing heat behind his or her desk does not make me feel entirely safe. And this is even more of a concern in primary and secondary education. A kindergarten teacher should not have to keep a part of her mind always focused on the gun in her classroom, praying that a curious kid does not find it and hoping she can successfully get to it and use it if necessary. A parent should not have to worry about the safety of a child who is being taught in a room with a firearm. Children should not have their lives and cultures so saturated by weapons that the place they go to learn each day is filled with them.
A "good guy with a gun" is by no means the only, or most effective, way to stop a "bad guy with a gun." America should focus on making sure that those "bad guys" do not get a gun in the first place, whether that is by mental health initiatives, tighter gun restrictions, harsher gun law enforcement, addressing the culture of violence brought on by video games and the media or some combination of the above. We should prevent gun violence from ever taking place, rather than hope we can save as many people as possible when the time comes. That will likely be more effective than hoping that one security guard with a gun can protect an entire school from a shooter with a semiautomatic rifle.
