Murder Incorporated

After the recent Florida school shooting the discussions on Twitter and other social media have been everything but subtle. Earlier this week the President of the USA even suggested that teachers should carry guns.

I can’t for my life understand how any reasonably sane person can’t see that adding more guns to the gun issue will inevitably lead to more casualties. There wouldn’t be any shootings without guns. How can a supposedly intelligent nation not grasp that?

The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby play a big part in the USA’s unwillingness to discuss increased gun control. There’s simply too much money involved. Many federal election candidates, including the president, have received lots of campaign money from the NRA’s Political Victory Fund. In fact, Donald Trump won the White House campaigning on a promise to support the NRA and oppose any limits to Americans’ right to own guns. To put more guns in schools is a way to increase firearms sales and how can politicians to say no to one of their biggest benefactors?

To propose that teachers should bear guns is absurd. It will not only increase the numbers of weapons available, but also give the perpetrator access to guns inside of schools. Teachers’ job description does not include killing classroom intruders and it never should.

There must be other ways to deal with school shootings than to arm teachers. The USA obviously has system failure within its constitution. The second amendment, that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is from 1791 and since the 1990s there have been debates regarding firearm availability and gun violence. There is serious disagreement about whether guns protect liberty or threaten it.

Europe has a history of school shootings as well, but there hasn’t been a major high-casualty gun attack on a campus in almost a decade, whereas (just seven weeks into 2018) there have been eight shootings at US schools that have resulted in injury or death. The reason for the change in the number of attacks in Europe is the prevalence of handguns. Gun laws are much more restrictive in Europe than in the USA. Published studies indicate (not very surprisingly) that a decrease in the number of weapons result in a decrease in shootings. There is, consequently, a link between the number of guns and mass shootings that kill four or more people (surprise, surprise 😏).

It’s obvious that something needs to be done to prevent more school shootings. I am, however, 100% sure that the answer to the problem is not to put guns in the hands of teachers.