With two more school shootings added to the 11 previously this year, students across the country are looking for answers as to why school shootings still happen. None of the teachers involved in any of these shootings were armed.  Most, if not all, of these school shootings could have been avoided by having any school official being armed with a firearm.  There is one simple solution to cut down on school shootings: arm the teachers of our schools.

In the 1990’s, when the national crime rates reached their peaks, states decided to toughen their laws on how people could get a permit to carry a firearm on their body in public.  After these laws took place, crime rates plummeted.  Arming law-abiding citizens with firearms decreased violence, therefore arming teachers would greatly reduce, if not obliterate, school shootings.

In all the school shootings that have happened in 2013, all of the shooters have had some sort of psychological disorder, whether it be from something severe such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from a tour in Iraq, or under outrageous delusional beliefs.

By definition, conceal and carry is the act of keeping any weapon, usually a handgun, which are kept hidden on one’s possession or under one’s control to aid in a self-defense situation. This definition holds true in all situations, including teachers in schools.

“The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” says junior Nick Heller.

The key to arming teachers and guards is not how they will acquire their weapons, it is with what they will be armed with and who is responsible for deciding this. Conceal and carry is a law that is decided by individual states and not by the national government, so it only makes sense to give the power to decide whether to arm teachers or not up to each individual state.

Arming teachers and school officials would not be a big, noticeable adjustment either.  In fact, laws surrounding arming teachers would be along the lines of conceal and carry laws.  No firearms would be visible to students, hence the “conceal” in conceal and carry.

In 2011, Minn. had 52,500 active teachers. If they were armed, these teachers would protect all 842,854 students in Minn. schools for an average school day duration of 6.3 hours.  This will be arming .98 percent of the Minn. population for 26 percent of the day. Arming teachers for a such a small part of the day can save so many lives without anyone even noticing any personnel concealing a firearm.

Arming teachers and school officials will incredibly decrease, if not decimate, the amount of school shootings. Think of it this way: if a thief goes into a petting zoo and steals all of the defenseless animals while the shopkeepers stand there and said, “Do not do that, that is mean and against the law!” do you think the thief is going to listen?