The RAND Corporation released a recent survey of teachers about safety issues, such as arming teachers in schools to deter potential mass shooters. There have been legislative proposals throughout the U.S. to allow for teachers to voluntarily train and arm themselves with a legally-owned firearm in schools, with almost no success in becoming law. But, in a Arkansas school district, at least 20 staff members (teachers and administrators) chose to arm themselves in school.
The survey’s key findings were that 54% of teachers believed that arming teachers would make schools less safe, 20% said that it would make schools safer, and 26% noted it wouldn’t make schools more safe or less safe. Also, white teachers were more likely to believe that arming teachers would make schools safer compared to their black colleagues and rural male teachers “were most likely to say that they would personally carry a firearm at school if allowed.”
Other findings were that around half of teachers felt that current security procedures “positively affected the school climate” and “only 5 percent of teachers felt that their schools’ physical security measures had a negative effect on school climate.”
Teachers’ main safety concern was not gun violence, but bullying, which is interesting due to the non-stop, anti-gun rights narrative pushed by the mainstream media.
Not helping matters is that the mainstream media buried other relevant information in its reporting, such as 550,000 teachers out of 3 million expressing interest in arming themselves to defend their students and themselves, and emphasized how 54% of teachers did not believe arming teachers would make schools safer.
