Protecting Our Schools
Texas experienced one of the deadliest school shootings in United States history in 2022 when a gunman murdered 19 children and two educators and injured 14 others at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. A few years prior in 2018, a gunman killed 10 people and wounded 13 others, including a police officer, at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, a Houston suburb.
The Texas Legislature’s response to horrific events like these has been to implement the Texas school marshal and school guardian programs, placing unsecured guns into our most vulnerable spaces, via armed staff with varying degrees of training. Less than 1% of school districts have armed school staff since the launch of the School Marshal Program, highlighting the reality that educators do not want to be forced to defend schools from mass shootings. Texas Gun Sense strongly supports keeping guns out of vulnerable spaces like schools.
Evidence shows that armed staff and even trained law enforcement have not prevented school shootings. In a United States Secret Service Study of 41 incidents, only 6 out of the 41 incidents were ended by law enforcement intervention.
The Robb Elementary shooting is a tragic example of the likelihood that even highly-trained officers are unable to stop a school shooter.
Educators overwhelmingly do not support expanding guns in schools. In a survey by the Texas American Federation of Teachers, 76% of K-12 teachers reported a wish not to be armed, and 90% of respondents were fearful of gun violence in occuring in the school. Instead, respondents in the survey overwhelmingly supported stricter enforcement of gun violence prevention laws such as red flag laws and raising the minimum age to purchase guns.
Giffords (2023) reports that 80% of teachers, 70% of teenagers, and 70% of parents do not support arming teachers in schools.
According to the American Psychological Association, students of color are often disciplined more harshly in schools, and Giffords reported last year that there have been nearly 100 reported incidents of mishandled guns at schools in the last fivefive years — illustrating that armed staff could do more harm than good. We know that the solution to school violence is prevention.
In the 88th Legislative Session in 2023, new school safety laws were passed. They included the requirement of armed personnel on campus and silent panic buttons in classrooms. Once again, the Texas Legislature focused on hardening schools instead of reducing access to lethal firearms. In a policy win, Texas Gun Sense worked with Representative Dutton to pass legislation that mandates the distribution of safe gun storage information across school districts.
Recommendations
Texas Gun Sense supports the implementation of evidence-based policies to reduce and end gun violence. Extreme Risk Protection laws keep the public safe by temporarily suspending access to guns by individuals who are making imminent threats of lethal harm.
Additionally, we know that creating stronger vetting requirements for semi-automatic gun purchases is a necessary step for making schools safer, as we cannot ignore the fact that nearly every mass shooting is carried out with a semi-automatic rifle, and many are perpetrated by people under the age of 21.
Lastly, we can keep our schools and families safe through safe gun storage laws and stronger child access prevention policies.
August 2024