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Five Concerns About Armed Guards in Schools

Jan. 14, 2013 12:58pm

Steven Strauss was founding Managing Director of the Center for Economic Transformation at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). He is a […]

Steven Strauss was founding Managing Director of the Center for Economic Transformation at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). He is a 2012 Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University. He has a Ph.D. in Management from Yale University and over 20 years' private sector work experience.

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Strauss: Five Concerns About Armed Guards in Schools

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre (AP)

“Congress should act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation” Wayne LaPierre, CEO, National Rifle Assn. (NRA)

Shootings in our schools are tragic, and each of us has the urge to “do something,” but I have major concerns about placing armed guards in our schools.

1. Armed Guards Are Not Likely to Prevent All Attacks – It’s difficult to find examples where armed guards prevented a mass shooting. For example, at the Columbine and Virginia Tech school shootings, there were armed guards, but they weren’t able to prevent those tragedies. Remember: The shooter will pick the time and place of attack, and would surely attempt to avoid striking when (and the specific locations where) armed guards are patrolling.

2. Even if Armed Guards Are Present in All Schools and Completely Effective, the Cure Might be Worse than the Disease – The U.S. has about 100,000 schools, so we’re discussing an order of 150,000 armed guards (some schools would be large enough to warrant several guards), for 75 million students, about 200 days a year. There would be lots of opportunities for deadly incidents: Armed guards misreading student behavior (e.g., a student mistakenly shot while playing with a toy gun); Student fights where a student grabs the guard’s gun; a mass shooting scenario where students are killed in crossfire; or, a nightmare scenario where a psychotic guard massacres students.

Although mass school shootings (with the loss of innocent young lives) are tragic, recall that the U.S. averaged 10 student deaths per year in mass school shootings over the past 10 years. With 150,000 armed guards, in contact with about 75 million students 200 days/year, it won’t take many incidents for more than 10 students per year to be killed in armed guard-related situations. Perhaps I’m overly pessimistic, but this risk should be seriously considered.

3. Our Children Are Priceless, But There Are More Efficient Ways to Save Young Lives – In round numbers, 150,000 guards at a cost of $100,000/guard (that’s fully loaded costs, including benefits, costs of training and whatever management infrastructure is needed) would require $15 billion/year. Assuming the armed guards are completely effective and we have no guard-related incidents, based on past trends we’ll save about 10 young lives per year, at a cost of $1.5 billion/life. (As a side point, schools are one of the safest places for children. For ages 5-18, about 20 students total are killed in schools each year, out of a total of 55 million students in this age group.)

Consider that about 4,600 young people (between the ages of 10 and 24) commit suicide in the U.S. each year, and about 2,000 of these suicides involve firearms. Another 5,000 young people (again, between the ages of 10 and 24) are murdered, and (as noted above) very few of these murders happen in schools. And don’t forget the 1,700 young people (between the ages of 0 and 17) who die each year from neglect or abuse (80 percent of these are under 4 years of age). It doesn’t take a major leap of faith to believe that investing $15 billion in comprehensive youth suicide, murder and neglect prevention programs (instead of armed guards) would save hundreds of young lives instead of about 10 lives per year

4. Arming Custodians, Teachers and Volunteers – While less costly, this approach deepens my concern that the cure might be worse than the disease. Armed custodians, teachers and volunteers will have less vetting and training than a professional security force, and would likely increase the risk of deadly incidents. America has about 7 million teachers. If even a small percentage arm themselves, it wouldn’t take many incidents to exceed the current death toll from mass school shootings.

5. It’s Not Clear Why Armed Guards in Local Schools Should be a Federal Responsibility – It’s ironic that the NRA board — dominated by the GOP/Tea Party’s conservative “small government” wing (e.g., Grover Norquist) which normally insists the Federal government can’t do anything right — is demanding a new “big government” Federal program.

Police, schooling and related activities have typically been within the domain of local government. If Boston wants armed guards in its schools, but Houston believes they’re unnecessary, the Federal government shouldn’t impose its will on local governments about this issue. The local community is in the best position to consider the potential risks, benefits and costs of its approach.

I doubt that armed guards in schools are the approach we should take. But I recognize that others may feel differently. Some people, for example, may believe worse incidents (than have already occurred) lie ahead and armed guards would prevent future tragedies. I urge everyone to seriously consider my concerns outlined above, before making rash decisions affecting the lives of our young people.

America has a real problem with gun violence. About 30,000 Americans die each year from firearm-related injuries (and, about 60 percent of this total are suicides). School deaths from mass shootings are a very small part of this problem. I urge all Americans to join NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, 800 other mayors (Democratic and Republican), and almost 1 million fellow Americans in Demanding a Plan from Congress and President Obama to reduce gun deaths.

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Comments (15)

scott4freedom
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:22pm
The NRA suggested federal government intervention…however the plan could work much better on the local and state level rather than involving federal $. Each local school system would be responsable for the hiring of ex cops ,ex military, or trained security. Do this on the local level ,get locally quailified personel from within the community. Thus putting the burden of proof so to speak,on the community that they serve. Parents and board of education members will come up with the $ if it presented to them to make each and every person accountable for thier childrens saftey!

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taintso
Posted on January 19, 2013 at 12:09pm
My concern would be that the guards would be from displaced postal workers.

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normusa
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 6:11pm
I am not seeing much about letting the local school board decide on issues and safety. They should be charged with looking into doing what it takes to keep students and employees safe, much like fire safety. A school with no fire extinguishers or other equipment and no fire danger training would be in law suits even after they bankrupted the district in case of fire. How many kids have been killed by school fire in the last 50 years?–None, zero, nada. How many killed by violence?–plenty. School boards need to assess their risks and take action.

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IWISHIWASINTEXAS
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 3:05pm
Simply a bunch of pessimistic worries that have no base in fact. Too many “if”s. As for the cost? I think my child’s life is worth it. The liberals are always raising taxes for education. This I would gladly pay more for. I’m sure though that there are many veterans out there that would love to provide protection for the children of this nation for less pay than a private security company would.

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Skearit
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 9:06am
I agree with only one point made in this article. The federal government should not be the entity handling this. Leave it to the local law enforcement. And if they’re unwilling to organize the moms and dads and train them, then kick the idiot sheriff out and elect a new one.

The rest of the article was just baseless pessimistic tripe.

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- DamoclesAurelius
  Posted on January 15, 2013 at 2:03pm
  I agree with SKEARIT, this is a local issue to be solved by the states, not the Federal govt.
  
  On that note, I think I can come up with three simple solutions that might overcome the author’s pessimism. First, why not have armed guards who behave like air marshals? They dress and behave like normal security -they could be a teacher, an aide, a secretary, a janitor- and do not involve themselves in standard student disciplining. They will only react if there is an actual shooting.
  
  Second, we can make it optional for teachers to conceal carry; only let those teachers who want to carry a gun do so. However, ALL teachers should be required to take a gun-safety course, as well as regular psch evaluations. Teachers who opt to carry must inform the principle that they will do so (laws should protect this decision as private information, and cannot be used against them for political reasons).
  
  Finally, eliminating truancy laws would do a LOT to get rid of troublemakers who only come to school because they have to. You can’t force people to educate themselves, especially if they don’t value education.
  
  As for cost, I think my child’s life is worth it, don’t you?
  This should provide the solutions, while avoiding some, if not all, the problems outlined in this article.
  
  Report this comment
chris vrahnos
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 8:17am
The talk is to make schools safer.First fence off the school property and have a armed guard patrolling it.Only have two gates,one for busses and staff that have artheration.Every one else gets search like going onto a military base.I have worked as a truck driver and there is a lot of outfits out there that do just this and have no problems.

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SANSALVADOR
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 3:01am
I haven’t heard so much BS ,piled so high and so deep since the last time Obama spoke. Strauss would be an excellent speaker for the Communist Central Committee or Iran. He apparently believes that if you spread enough fertilizer around something will pop up. This guy wouldn’t make sense even if he was the only guy in the room. The Blaze must be hurting for news.

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SANSALVADOR
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 2:51am
It’s not about guns.It is about people’s hearts and minds. Our society,our culture,our education system has created generations of children, teenagers, youth, juveniles and young adults who don’t have any idea what it is to accept responsibility for their actions. They are self centered,spoon fed individuals who think only about themselves. We have a God less nation of people who have grown up on hours and hours of TV violence, Movie violence, Video violence, street violence and lack of parental training. We apparently have hundreds of mentally ill people across this country that instead of receiving treatment and help have been main streamed into society and our schools because the experts at the Federal level think mainstreaming them is healthy rather than identify them as people that need help. The Feds have cut back on programs to help the menatlly ill and instead just turn them lose. The same day that Sandy Hook took place a nut in China used a knife to attack multiple victims and in another country a crazy used a bomb. It isn’t about guns! More poeple are killed by driunk drivers in a year/ every year then by guns. It was a terrible tragedy ,but look at the killer not what he used. Identify the why,not the how. We have had a lot of serial killers that commited multiple murders,but never used a gun. Profiles were created to identfy these people and technologies and science used to stop them. Why can’t we use that science and technology to prevent these incidents?

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banjarmon
Posted on January 15, 2013 at 12:45am
We trust teachers with the education of our kids… We should Trust them with the lives of our kids. Several of the Adults teachers at Sandy Hook used their bodies as shields to protect the kids and failed!! Again IF they had been Armed and Trained Many lives would have saved and the killing Stopped SOONER!!!!
WHEN SECONDS COUNT…THE COPS ARE MINUTES AWAY!!!

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Remnant
Posted on January 14, 2013 at 10:22pm
Item 4:
“4. Arming Custodians, Teachers and Volunteers – While less costly, this approach deepens my concern that the cure might be worse than the disease. Armed custodians, teachers and volunteers will have less vetting and training than a professional security force, and would likely increase the risk of deadly incidents. America has about 7 million teachers. If even a small percentage arm themselves, it wouldn’t take many incidents to exceed the current death toll from mass school shootings.”

* “…Armed custodians, teachers and volunteers will have less vetting…”
* “…it wouldn’t take many incidents to exceed the current death toll…”

This is totally hypothetical, unsupported nonsense! It doesn’t even rise to the level of a “straw man.”

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randi3927
Posted on January 14, 2013 at 9:00pm
This is such BS. There are lots of schools with armed police, where are the projected horrors? Further there appear to be numerous incorrect numbers. About the only thing I agree with is ten kids a year is hardly worth the effort.

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- ranepowel
  Posted on January 15, 2013 at 5:38pm
  They’re obviously not your 10 kids. What a callous, awful thing to say.
  
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crawdad
Posted on January 14, 2013 at 8:25pm
Someone needs to be armed at the school. Access during school hours needs to be tightly controlled. At our local high school, it’s easy to just walk through the front door. Of course, there’s a sign that all visitors must check in at the front office. Why not someone, who has other work to do, sit near the front door, buzzing people in who have a legitimate reason to be there? Heck, they do that at the WalMart auto center. Don’t let anyone exit through a side door during the school day lest an unauthorized person waiting outside gain entry. Just a few suggestions from someone uninformed on proper/professional security measures. Just ordinary common sense.

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harmonyhomesteader
Posted on January 14, 2013 at 7:10pm
Is this article representative of the opinion of the Blaze or just a piece inserted to provide fodder for rebuttal?
I personally have no desire to agree with Bloomberg, 800 progressive mayors, and a million Americans “demanding a plan” The only plan that consistently is appropriate is a good person to defy an evil one’s plans by simply being there and standing firm. Whether that is armed security guards, or school staff with CCW (the most likely to prevent a mass shooting, or at least lessen the casualties until police units can intervene). The basic need is to eliminate the innocent killing grounds that “Gun Free Zones” create.
Nobody in my rural high school was stupid enough to attempt a shooting, they knew full well that there were a dozen cars and trucks just off of school grounds that had rifles and shotguns, and students that were willing to use them to protect their brothers, sisters, and friends.
We grew up and appreciated the “gun culture”. We had a shotgun shooting team in high school, going all over the state competing with other students. Thousands upon thousands of rounds fired, never one accident. Most of these students went on to either serve in the military, police, or fire departments.
Regarding the opinion written in this article, the author pulls out several progressive ploys to fool those that are incompetent. To use the example of a gun being taken from an officer’s duty belt is just foolish, but typical is this line of argument f

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