Following the deadly shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead, lawmakers are considering how they can make schools safer.
The idea of arming teachers sparked strong reactions this past week with some teachers going so far as to say they’ll no longer teach if they have to carry a gun.
Candice Reeve is both a teacher at Tempe High School and a gun owner. She was also raised by an Army Ranger.
“My uncle’s a Green Beret,” Reeve said. “He’s actually the one that gave me my .357.”
Reeve said she thinks the idea of arming teachers is a terrible one.
“Teachers didn’t become teachers for that reason,” Reeve said. “There’s a lot of training that would need to take place and things that you can’t really expect a teacher to be trained for, like shooting a kid that they may have had in class. No one is going to be prepared to do something like that.”
She added that it’s a liability no school district would want to take on.
“If you had a teacher who was armed, obviously they would have to have it on their person, loaded, at all times,” Reeve said. “That’s just a huge liability as you put a target on that teacher as well. They could be assaulted. There are just too many factors that are beyond control.”
Reeve has been a teacher for 12 years and said she doesn’t think carrying a gun would keep her from teaching.
“I can’t imagine not being a teacher because it is something I’m really passionate about,” Reeve said.
As far as finding better solutions, Reeve said it’s complicated and sometimes hard to spot warning signs in students.
“As a teacher, you are always on the lookout for a change in a kid’s behavior like they were doing well in class and suddenly they’ve kind of dropped off,” Reeve said. “There are a lot of things that kids are going through that I couldn’t imagine surviving at their age.”
Reeve added that armed teachers could pose “a higher likelihood of accidental shootings.”
