Armed Teachers May Be Coming To Schools Soon

Senator Rick Scott’s plan to keep schools safe was to take funds earmarked for the new army of armed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents and funnel it to programs allowing schools to invest in armed officers that would patrol school grounds.

He called it the School Guardian Act. The $80 billion that Congress authorized to expand the IRS would be used to keep our children safe and prevent shootings like the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

The loved ones of the victims have publicly backed Scott’s proposal. The left has derided his proposal, calling the plan ludicrous, although it’s not explained why. There are armed guards in the Capitol.

The School Guardian Act creates a block grant program that will allow the United States Department of Justice to employ one or more police officers full-time at each K-12 school in the country.

Each and every school shooting reignites a national discourse about how the country should respond to gun violence. Conflicting opinions exist among school districts over the most efficient safety measures to take.

Security experts in schools say that a month after six people were killed in an active shooter situation at Nashville’s Covenant School, several schools are reevaluating their safety procedures. Some argue that this calls for more debate about arming campus police.

The school board in Spirit Lake, Iowa, decided in late November 2022 to allow ten non-teaching staff members to carry handguns on campus after extensive training with Peterson Firearms Instruction. 

David Smith, a superintendent in Spirit Lake for 13 years, admits that arming school workers was never on his radar when he first took the job but said you have to “think outside the box” to tackle this problem.

Armed security is not precisely “outside the box.” It’s pretty rudimentary thinking when it comes to safety.

Scott filed the bill after a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, in late March, in which six people were slain, including three 9-year-olds

He has said that the resources are there to have trained armed personnel at schools to keep schools safe. There just has to be the will to do it.