Should teachers be armed with guns?

In what condition are teachers carrying their weapons?

My biggest question has been in what condition are teachers carrying their weapons? I just found this news clip where this armed teacher in Denver, CO says the school board won't allow staff to carry with a round in the chamber. This makes sense, and would prevent accidental discharge. I'm curious to know if all school boards share the same policy, and whether or not that applies to resource officers and security guards and/or hired police.

Indiana schools have hidden biometric gun safes

Hidden somewhere in each Jay County school is a gun in a safe. Experts find the idea 'flawed.'

Each building has a handgun in a safe only accessible via biometrics by authorized staff. Nobody is told where the gun safes are located, nor who has access. The safes are all under video surveillance.

65 publicly-reported mishandled guns in schools in just the last 5 years

Every Incident of Mishandled Guns in Schools

Some highlights:

January 8, 2019 — A school resource officer and retired police officer left an unloaded, holstered weapon on the counter of a bathroom.
October 24, 2018 — A gun brought to a middle school school by a teacher was stolen by two students.
October 23, 2018 — A substitute elementary school teacher was helping children do cartwheels when a gun loaded with 19 rounds of ammunition fell out of his waistband.
October 5, 2018 — A school security guard left a gun in the bathroom. A 5th grade student found the gun and alerted teachers right away.
September 18, 2018 — A school resource office left her duty weapon in the faculty bathroom at an elementary school.
February 5, 2018 — A school resource officer left a loaded handgun in a school restroom. No shots fired.
January 26, 2018 — A student brought a gun to school, which ended up in the possession of a teacher. The teacher hid the gun in her desk overnight.

Some of these incidents are strange, but the prominent pattern seems to be teachers and resource officers leaving their weapons in the bathroom.

Long-range pepper spray: an alternative to arming teachers

The idea of arming teachers is a hot debate. In 2014, a sixth-grade teacher with a concealed carry permit (carrying a gun) was hurt when the gun accidentally fired and hit a porcelain toilet in the faculty restroom, proving that teachers who are already familiar with concealed carry can make mistakes.

I wonder why nobody's talking about arming teachers with long-distance pepper spray? Pepper spray would disable a gunman if a person could get close enough. Long-range pepper spray like this kind from Mace works at a distance of 25 feet and could be used by anyone without getting close to the gunman.

It seems easier to pull the trigger on a can of long-range pepper spray than to train teachers to become skilled marksmen who can shoot accurately under an intense nerve-wracking situation without killing innocent kids. I'm not advocating for kids to risk expulsion for carrying pepper spray, but if I were in high school again, I would absolutely carry this on me and not even tell my friends.

Preventing school violence is something that must be done on multiple levels. There's prevention and intervention. Arming teachers with guns and pepper spray would be considered intervention (and technically defense), but that doesn't make it any less important...

What do you think?

These were some great responses from former posters on this topic from our previous forum:

PostError wrote:The only really big issue I would see in this case, is the fact that Sabre Red Pepper Gel has one of the longest ranges on the market at 18 feet. So if a threat is more than 20 feet away, the spray is useless.
Subsequently, any standard firearm has a range of around 5,000 feet.
As long as the threat keeps his distance, there's nothing you can do to engage them. But they can definitely engage you, including chasing you as long as they don't get within 20 feet.
Here's another option I'd like to hear some thoughts on;
- RUBBER BULLETS
- PEPPERBALL GUNS

ryochan wrote:I think pepper spray is a far better alternative to guns, especially when considering the possible consequences of poor aiming/handling. One wrong move and an innocent child could be severely injured or killed. With pepper spray, there's still a chance of people in the surrounding area being sprayed, but the effects of that are far more manageable than a gunshot wound. My worry with pepper spray is that it could get into the wrong hands and be used to inflict pain in a non-self defense situation. Besides that, I think it's a much better idea than arming teachers with guns.