Armed guards or officers are already in about onethird of our nation’s public schools.30 Columbine High School had an armed guard, and Virginia Tech had a full campus police force. There is no evidence that armed guards or police officers in schools make children safer.30 The presidents of the two largest unions representing teachers and other school staff at all levels resoundingly rejected the NRA’s December 21st proposal to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation and to arm educators, calling the ideas “staggeringly misguided” and “mind-boggling,”32 and reinforcing instead that “schools must be safe sanctuaries, not armed fortresses.” While there isn’t clear evidence about armed security guards or police officers keeping children in schools safer, there is very troubling evidence that their large presence on school grounds is leading to the criminalization of some children at increasingly younger ages and the feeding of children, especially Black and Latino males, into the prison pipeline.
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