Hereʼs what the science says about bringing more guns intoschools: it doesnʼt work

W e understand that some might see this as a political issue and might dislike scientific

input on the matter. However, science is non-partisan. It simply presents conclusions

drawn from thorough research — whether we like those conclusions or not.

The recent school shooting in Florida left 17 people dead. However, this is hardly an outlier

— it s̓ merely a symptom of a systemic problem which seems to plague the US alone among

all other developed countries. Already, there have been 30 mass shootings in 2018, and it s̓

only February. In the past 1,870 days, there have been 1624 mass shootings (defined as

gun-related incidents which kill or injure four or more people).

In the wake of the Florida shooting, US President Trump said that “highly trained” teachers

with guns could help prevent tragedies. “A teacher woulda shot the hell out of him before he

knew what happened,” Trump told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on

Friday. The idea is also supported by a majority of US gun owners, according to surveys from

the Pew Research Center. But is this really backed by anything concrete?

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Hereʼs what the science says about bringing more guns intoschools: it doesnʼt work

W e understand that some might see this as a political issue and might dislike scientific

input on the matter. However, science is non-partisan. It simply presents conclusions

drawn from thorough research — whether we like those conclusions or not.

The recent school shooting in Florida left 17 people dead. However, this is hardly an outlier

— it s̓ merely a symptom of a systemic problem which seems to plague the US alone among

all other developed countries. Already, there have been 30 mass shootings in 2018, and it s̓

only February. In the past 1,870 days, there have been 1624 mass shootings (defined as

gun-related incidents which kill or injure four or more people).

In the wake of the Florida shooting, US President Trump said that “highly trained” teachers

with guns could help prevent tragedies. “A teacher woulda shot the hell out of him before he

knew what happened,” Trump told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on

Friday. The idea is also supported by a majority of US gun owners, according to surveys from

the Pew Research Center. But is this really backed by anything concrete?

! Share " Tweet

Wir schützen, was Ihnen wichtig ist -seit 20 Jahren!

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o2online.de

TÜV-geprü!e Kinder- undJugendreisen. Jetzt buchen!

jugendtours.de

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Editor s̓ Pick

WHAT IS THE BELLY BUTTON, DOES IT

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Teachers donʼt want guns

For starters, study after study found that teachers donʼt really want guns on campus. The

number of American colleges and universities that permit concealed firearms on campus is

small, but the number is growing, wrote Dahl et al. in 2016. Out of the staff they surveyed, just

17.8% said they would even consider carrying a hidden gun, and most didnʼt support the idea.

Despite Trump s̓ statement that 10 to 20% of teachers are “very gun-adept,” teachers are

notoriously anti-gun. If you talk to them, youʼll likely get stern responses.

“Every teacher I have any contact [with] says that they donʼt want to be armed, that kids

would be killed by errant bullets, that the halls would be pandemonium and many lives

would be lost in crossfire,” said NYU educational policy analyst and former Assistant

Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch about the plausibility of Trump s̓ remarks. On the

statistic itself, she added that Trump “made it up.”

There are 3.1 million public school teachers and 400,000 private school teachers in America,

according to a 2015 National Center for Education Statistics survey. Some 76 percent of

public school teachers are women. We donʼt know how many of them own guns, but we do

know quite a lot about female gun owners in general. Theyʼre much less likely than men to

own guns. Fewer than 25% of female gun owners have earned at least a bachelor degree (a

basic prerequisite for teaching).

More guns lead to more killings

It s̓ not just that teachers donʼt want guns on campus. Science fundamentally contradicts the

idea that bringing more guns, especially to classrooms, will solve the problem; quite the

contrary: several studies have found that more guns lead to more killings. In a 2004 review

of scientific studies, Harvard s̓ Lisa Hepburn and David Hemenway found that no matter

where you go, whether youʼre in the US or another country, in the classroom or at home, more

guns equal more killings. Here s̓ what they wrote:

INTERNATIONAL WOMENʼS DAY: TEN

WOMEN IN SCIENCE WHO ARENʼT MARIE

CURIE

YEAST AND ITS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT

ECONOMIC ROLE

DARWINʼS “ADVERTISING” — THE

MAGNIFICENT BIOLOGICAL ART OF ERNST

HAECKEL

SILICON-BASED LIFE ON EARTH? ONLY

ARTIFICIALLY, SO FAR — BUT MAYBE

NATURAL ON OTHER PLANETS

“Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates

that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across

high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional

studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the U.S., where there are

more guns, both men and women are at a higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm

homicide.”

At least six different studies have found the same things — no matter how you go about it,

bringing more guns into the equation adds more problems than it solves. The corollary was

also proven true: having fewer guns, enforced through legislation, reduces the number of

victims.

So, what does work?

Several other countries used to have a gun problem. Among them, the case of Germany is

particularly telling. Germany drastically reduced its gun-related homicides through

legislation.

“The numbers of people killed in Germany by guns has been falling steadily for several

years, and a large part of the reason for that is the tougher laws and diminished

availability of guns,” said Dagmar Ellerbrock, a history professor and authority on gun

crime at Dresden s̓ Technical University.

In classrooms, instead of arming teachers, Germany instructed them to look for so-

called “leaking” behaviors that might indicate whether someone is planning an attack. In the

case of the Florida shooting, as with most other tragedies, there were plenty of these

behaviors.

It s̓ not just Germany: a 2016 study also concluded that gun control works, and in the same

year, a meta-analysis reviewed the results of 130 high-quality studies. This is probably

the most comprehensive systematic review of its kind, and researchers found strong evidence

that a strict gun control policy (i.e. banning automatic rifles, making background checks,

requiring permits and license for firearms) reduces all types of gun-related violence. Here are

the review s̓ main findings:

It usually takes major legislation overhaul – not just one new law – to see significant

change.

Restricting access to guns and their purchase is associated with reductions in firearm

deaths.

Individual studies need to be better executed and planned in the future to get more

convincing results.

It seems surprising that the US, which has the highest rates of firearm-related fatalities in the

developed world, hasnʼt carried out more studies into this issue — but there s̓ a very serious

reason for this. In 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted a federal ‘banʼ on gun control and

violence research. Even twenty years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a

public health agency with an annual budget of seven billion dollars that s̓ tasked with saving

lives, is essentially neutered on the issue. The same carries for other public agencies. While

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Individual studies need to be better executed and planned in the future to get more

convincing results.

It seems surprising that the US, which has the highest rates of firearm-related fatalities in the

developed world, hasnʼt carried out more studies into this issue — but there s̓ a very serious

reason for this. In 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted a federal ‘banʼ on gun control and

violence research. Even twenty years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a

public health agency with an annual budget of seven billion dollars that s̓ tasked with saving

lives, is essentially neutered on the issue. The same carries for other public agencies. While

the US Congress vehemently refuses to even consider gun control, they also sealed the door

for research on the issue.

So even though eliminating the federal ban we would certainly produce more studies on gun

violence, there is still a solid body of research suggesting that adding more guns does nothing

to reduce violence, working instead to increase it.

Time and time again after a tragedy, the US population starts to discuss what should be done

about guns — and time and time again, nothing substantial is done. The science strongly

suggests what kind of action is necessary. Whether or not that course of action will be

followed remains to be seen.

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