When has fighting fire with fire ever been a successful way to solve problems? Since the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, where seventeen teenagers were slaughtered, President Trump has essentially proposed that schools should start arming teachers.

  “Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again – a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States,” said Trump in an infamous tweet.

  So the question remains. Should school staff and teachers be armed? And will this actually lower and eventually end the school shooting epidemic? Will bringing more guns into an equation where guns are the problem solve the gun problem (mass shootings)?

  To be sure, a majority of Republicans claim this method may deter shooters looking for an easy target, that armed staff could respond to a shooter, and the district may have more flexibility over security. Teachers could protect their students from the next madman walking into the building or at least minimize the casualties. It would make someone less likely to shoot up schools.

  The issue, however, is the ability for a teacher to actually defend students with a gun against a school shooting. Everything is hypothetical.

 “Simply putting a gun on the premises and hoping someone’s going to do the right thing with it is baseless,” said Chris Grollnek, a former law enforcement officer who specializes in security issues, especially active shooter situations.

  The teacher would have to be in the right spot at the right time to grab the gun and defend the class. Most school shootings go unannounced before they happen, so how would the teacher know when to grab the gun from its case, or wherever it would be safely kept?

  Also, where would it be kept that would give the teacher access to it on the spur of the moment, but also keep it concealed? If we’re talking realistically, the gun would be locked away somewhere, which would take a couple of minutes to unlock. On average, it takes a semi-automatic weapon fifteen seconds to fire 30 rounds or more.

  Teachers would have to go through a rigorous and highly intensive series of courses to train them how to properly use a gun. Cerino Consulting and Training Group led by Chris Cerino, a former law enforcement officer, has trained over 1,300 educators to fire a gun, ambush tactics, responding under stress and to treat wounds. Many leave after a couple of hours, realizing they’re not cut out for it.

 Even after the training, there is no way to guarantee that teachers would respond the way they are expected to in the moment.

“Teachers’ training and expertise has nothing to do with police tactics — shoot-don’t-shoot decision making, the psychological trauma that accompanies violence, all the things that are built into what police officers deal with on a daily basis,” said Rick Myers, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.

Teachers are human and mistakes could be made that could worsen the situation. How are the police to know if a teacher is shooting or if it’s the shooter? What if a teacher accidentally shoots and kills a student. Most of the time the shooter is student.

  How many teachers can kill a student?

  In a nationally representative poll of 500 teachers, 73% opposed being armed, and of those, 63% strongly opposed it. When asked what could be done to prevent U.S school shootings, one third of the group said stricter gun laws, while only 7% mentioned arming teachers.

  Many agree this will only add to the chaos and could cause things to become even more dangerous. There is even a popular movement called #ArmMeWith, which is a nationwide hashtag where teachers say what they would rather be armed with instead of guns. They say stronger gun control, more resources, and better pay could pose as solutions.

Teachers are already underpaid and overworked. I don’t feel they need another thing to be responsible for. So maybe we don’t have a solution yet, but guns don’t seem to be it.

  Politicians should listen to the people on the front lines of education if they truly want to arrive at a sensible solution.

 “All you’re doing is signing people up for PTSD,” Grollnek said.