A few weeks ago, I discovered that my former high school in Texas held a town hall-style meeting in which people could voice their opinions on whether or not specially trained staff should carry firearms during the school day and at school functions. It was a rather idiotic scheme, at best; perhaps they felt their good intentions to protect the students outweighed the danger, lethal weapons in a school. However, if more guns were to enter a school zone, the chances of injuries or death would not be diminished.

I understand the worries of parents across the nation in light of incidents such as the Columbine High School, Arapahoe High School and Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, just to name a few. However, the chosen method of addressing these problems (arming teachers) is flawed.

Just over the course of this past year, 13 school districts in Arkansas began arming their teachers. This pandemic of dimwits displaying cases of poor judgment has spread across the nation, as some Colorado school districts and others in South Dakota followed suit in allowing some of their faculty members to be armed. In fact, according to Huffington Post, more than one-third of the states permit teachers or staff members to carry firearms.

Unfortunately, no one seems to see the potential problems of arming staff. Let us consider just a few potential issues: Students could get their hands on the guns or staff members may accidentally shoot an innocent bystander. A staff member could forget to lock up the gun or the ammunition, or the armed faculty member may freeze in the time of stress and confrontation with an armed assailant and be killed because of the firearm he or she is wielding.

A staff member from Briggsdale School in Colorado described it as, “worth taking the training and assuming the responsibility of carrying a concealed weapon in the school, if knowing that if it was to happen at our school, I could possibly, and hopefully, do something to stop the situation and save some kid’s life.” While this staff member might be able to do something to intervene while wielding a gun, the individual may not have enough experience to act substantially enough to put an end to the situation completely.

Imagine a person enters a teacher’s room with intent to harm and despite the teacher’s hunting and target shooting experiences, the only experience with a gun for the purpose of injuring or killing another human comes from the required training that the teachers must go through. Does anyone really believe that this staff member would be able to shoot to harm or even kill? You can hunt and shoot targets with a gun all your life, but nothing can prepare you for possibly taking the life of a person.

Even those with extensive shooting experience often find themselves missing the mark. According to a Rand study, extensively trained “New York City policemen involved in a gunfight hit their target only 18 percent of the time.” These people do this for a living; they are trained at an academy specifically for that purpose, yet the success rate leaves much to be desired.

And yet people want to arm school faculty?

Furthermore, let’s suppose an unarmed student who attends a school decides that he or she wants to shoot somebody. The school could easily end up being the supplier of this weaponry and the ammo to boot. Even if the schools elected to separate the guns from the ammunition, there is no risk-proof method to ensure this safety protocol of arming teachers would not backfire. Also what cannot be forgotten is the risk that students may be able to take a weapon from an administrator by force. Pete Pochowski, an officer of the Milwaukee police force said, “Just taking a course and shooting some bullets down-range every six months does not adequately prepare you for the potential risk of having that gun taken from you.”

If staff members were armed, too many things could go wrong in the process of trying to prevent gun-related incidents from occurring, The answer to preventing dangerous weapons from entering the schools does not lie in putting the dangerous weapons in the schools.