Mishandled Guns in Schools

A comprehensive analysis finds there have been more than 60 publicly-reported incidents of mishandled guns at schools in the last five years, including:

• A teacher’s loaded gun falling from his waistband during a cartwheel.
• A student grabbing an officer’s gun while the officer attempted to subdue the student.
• A teacher unintentionally firing a gun in class during a safety demonstration.

Until very recently, educators and policymakers across the country have rejected the idea of arming teachers. But last summer, President Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced that the administration is considering allowing states to use federal funding to arm teachers in schools.
Arming teachers is an incredibly unpopular proposition, opposed by seven out of ten teenagers, eight out of ten teachers, and seven out of ten parents. And for good reason.

A study published in March 2019 found “no evidence that the presence of resource officers in schools lessened the severity of school shooting incidents.” And there is no evidence that armed teachers would be any more effective. In fact, a robust body of public health research strongly suggests armed teachers would not effectively deter violence. On the contrary, they would likely increase, rather than decrease, students’ exposure to gun violence in schools.

To catalog the risk guns in schools pose to student safety, a systematic review of publicly-reported incidents involving mishandled guns on school campuses was conducted , utilizing data from the Gun Violence Archive since 2014 (when their records begin) and independently verified each incident.

At comprehensive list, broken down into a few general categories, shows how guns brought onto campus—in many cases for the purpose of preventing violence—can actually increase risk.