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US school shooting: Debate over whether teachers should be armed, or walk out

US school shooting: Debate over whether teachers should be armed, or walk out

Arguments rage, while Florida mourns Scott Beigel, the geography teacher who died saving pupils’ lives

16th February 2018, 3:59pm

In the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, there have been demands for teachers to be armed, countered by calls for teachers to walk out of the classroom until schools are made safer.

North Carolinian state politician Larry Pittman has said that he wants to train school staff to carry and use guns at work. But social media is divided over whether this would improve teachers’ safety or merely leave them and their pupils more vulnerable to gunshot wounds.

These arguments are raging while pupils from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School - where 17 pupils and teachers were shot by 17-year-old Nikolas Cruz on Wednesday - pay tribute to geography teacher Scott Beigel (pictured).

The 35-year-old is believed to have been struck by a bullet after opening his classroom door to allow pupils to seek refuge inside. He was trying to close the door when Cruz walked past and shot him.

Pupil Kelsey Friend told CNN: “I am alive today because of him.”

But many commentators believe that teachers should not have to risk their lives in this way. One Twitter user said:

My mother was a @NYCSchools #Teacher for over thirty years; if she wasn’t retired, I would buy her a flak jacket.
Teachers need to band together, stage a national #walkout, demand action for the safety of your students and yourselves immediately.#nra #Florida #shooting #march1st
- RDW (@RDWeekend) 16 February 2018

Others agreed, calling for stricter gun-control measures, particularly for the type of semi-automatic rifle used by Cruz:

#Florida #guncontrol Teachers and kids should stage a walkout protest and stay out, until AR’s are banned and collected. We’re all terrified to send our kids to school. Enough. #walkout
- late for dinner (@Whymeofthree) 15 February 2018

Many more Twitter users, however, agreed with Larry Pittman, believing that the only solution was to arm teachers, so that they could respond immediately to an armed attack.

I don’t want to be in twitter for the next 3 days because all I’m seeing is bad shit about the shooting in Florida.. like damn quit trying to make me sad twitter. And I get it something need to be done like maybe ARM THE TEACHERS?!!!
- Isaac (@Una_Luna_) 16 February 2018

I find it harder to believe that any teacher in Florida feels safe if they work at any school with no metal detectors, no on-site security or practiced, security plan. Why not arm teachers AND parents, especially in the interim? Isn’t this an emergency?
- Hector Roos (@HectorinMiami) 16 February 2018

But there were also those who saw where this could lead:

The Florida school had an armed guard on campus, so there goes that argument out the window. So what do we do next? Arm the teachers.

Arm the students. Arm the janitor. Arm the lunch lady.

Shoot Tarantino films at American schools.

That’s the future we want.
- Burt Macklin (@ruprtpumpkn) 16 February 2018

And others recognised the irony in the fact that politicians were suddenly claiming to have sufficient funds to arm and provide weapon-training for teachers:

In response to the Florida shooting, there are calls all over the USA to arm teachers.

They won’t give teachers adequate resources to teach, but are ready to turn schools into arsenals of deadly weapons at the taxpayers expense.
- Mike, a European Spider #FBPE (@Geoelte_Spinne) 16 February 2018

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