Will Arming Teachers With Guns Stop School Shootings?

In response to persistent school shootings, some Americans now want to arm teachers. Comedian Wyatt Cenac thinks they need a reality check. ️

Transcript

00:00The teacher would have a concealed gun on them, they'd go for special training and they would

00:08be there and you would no longer have a gun-free zone.

00:17In the wake of so many school shootings, you've seen this call to do things like arm teachers and

00:27put cops in schools and bring in metal detectors. The result of that often has been teachers and

00:34administrators either abdicating responsibility or just handing over responsibility passively

00:41to law enforcement.

00:57The conversation around school safety has been so rooted in this idea of safety, we equate force

01:04with safety. Is safety fortifying and arming people? Or is safety giving everyone the tools

01:14and resources that they need so that they can feel comfortable when they walk into a school?

01:21If they don't have clean clothes, not every kid is going to show up and shoot up a school,

01:28but you have things like high rates of teen suicide that you could deal with.

01:34We drop our kids off at school that are so-called gun-free zones.

01:50A teacher would have a concealed gun on them, they'd go for special training

01:56and they would be there and you would no longer have a gun-free zone.

02:04Cops in schools and metal detectors, those are things that have existed in lower-income black and brown public schools for decades.

02:16Why can't safety also be access to mental health care, physical health care, quality food,

02:28quality education, arts programs? When you go to wealthy neighborhoods

02:33that do have all of those things, I think they speak of their neighborhoods as feeling safe

02:40because they have museums they can go to, because they have access to health care that

02:45is at their fingertips. They have quality foods whenever they want them. They speak of those

02:51things with a certain amount of safety and security that doesn't have weapons or cops or

02:58metal detectors, and so I think it's about reframing the conversation around safety.