Incidents show drawbacks of arming adults in schools
Gun Violence Archive reveals more than 30 publicly reported school mishaps since 2014
They are the “good guys with guns” the National Rifle Association says are needed to protect students from shooters: a school police officer, a teacher who moonlights in law enforcement, a veteran sheriff.
Yet in a span of 48 hours in March, the three were responsible for gun safety lapses that put students in danger.
The school police officer accidentally fired his gun in his Virginia office, sending a bullet through a wall into a middle school classroom. The teacher was demonstrating firearm safety in California when he mistakenly put a round in the ceiling, injuring three students who were hit by falling debris. And the sheriff left a loaded service weapon in a locker room at a Michigan middle school, where a sixth-grader found it.
All told, an Associated Press review of news reports collected by the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive revealed more than 30 publicly reported mishaps since 2014 involving firearms brought onto school grounds by law enforcement officers or educators. Guns went off by mistake, were fired by curious or unruly students, and were left unattended in bathrooms and other locations.
“If this can happen with a highly trained police officer, why would we give teachers guns?” interim Superintendent Lois Berlin of the Alexandria, Va., school system asked after the incident involving the officer whose accidental discharge put a bullet through a wall at George Washington Middle School. He was placed on leave and is under investigation.
Amid a nationwide push to arm teachers or add more police officers and armed guards, the AP review suggests that doing so will almost certainly have unintended consequences. The accidents are rare, but the actual number is probably higher because schools are not required to report them. And they have frightened students, outraged parents, prompted disciplinary and criminal investigations and left at least nine people injured.
Some insurance companies have refused to cover schools that allow non-law enforcement personnel to be armed. And many school employees have said in surveys that they would feel less safe if more of their colleagues were carrying weapons.
Nevertheless, calls to encourage districts to add more armed educators and officers have intensified since the Feb. 14 shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 students and educators dead.
Speaking Friday to the NRA convention in Dallas, President Donald Trump called for allowing trained teachers to carry concealed weapons in schools, along with more armed security guards.
He said the best deterrent to would-be school shooters is “the knowledge that their attack will end their life and end in total failure.”
In March, the White House pledged to provide aid to state and local agencies to provide firearms training for school personnel and to recruit more veterans and retired officers into education. At least a dozen states have considered bills this year that would encourage more armed officers, security guards or teachers in public schools.
Supporters of allowing more school personnel to carry weapons argue that proper training would prevent such incidents.
“It’s usually the person behind the gun who determines the outcome,” said Kansas state Sen. Dennis Pyle, a Republican and supporter of a stalled bill that would have prohibited insurance companies from charging “unfair discriminatory” rates to schools that arm.
A representative of the NRA declined to comment on the AP’s findings.
Sean Simpson is among the educators who have said publicly they would be willing to have firearms training, but the Douglas science teacher recently had his own mishap. He was charged after leaving his loaded handgun in a public restroom at a crowded beach pier in April. An intoxicated homeless man found the weapon and fired it before Simpson snatched it back, authorities said.
The National Association of School Resource Officers has raised concerns about allowing teachers to be armed, saying they may not have the training to use guns effectively during a high-stress situation or to keep them secure. The group is pushing for an officer in every public school instead.
Executive Director Mo Canady, a former school resource officer in Alabama, said he believes accidental discharges and other mistakes involving school officers’ guns are “much more rare than people might think.”
“When you’ve got 20,000 officers in schools across the country, things can happen. There’s no perfect situation,” he said.