Statement Opposing Bill to Arm Teachers in Tennessee

The Education Trust-Tennessee, in addition to a collective of teachers, parents, students, education leaders, and community members from across all three Grand Divisions in the State of Tennessee, are in strong opposition to HB1202/SB1325.

HB1202/SB1325 would allow a person employed by a local education agency (LEA) as a faculty or staff member at a school within the LEA to possess and carry a concealed handgun on the grounds of their school at which the person is assigned. Additionally, this bill establishes requirements for faculty or staff members to possess and carry concealed handguns on the grounds of the school, and states that an LEA is immune from claims for monetary damages that are related to a faculty member’s use of, or failure to use, a handgun at school.

About one year ago, Nashville tragically lost the lives of three nine-year old students and three adults at The Covenant School. This tragedy has not only left our state in continued mourning, grieving for the preventable loss of life in our community, but also highlights the need to employ evidence-based strategies to create safer schools, which must include removing guns from schools to protect our children and school staff. What happened in Nashville is not an isolated incident. In recent years, we saw a surge of gun-related violence and death in our school communities across the state from, Murfreesboro to Knoxville, Memphis, and beyond.

Tennessee has the 9th highest rate of gun violence in the country, with an average of 1385 Tennesseans losing their lives to gun violence in an average year. When thinking about our youngest Tennesseans, gun violence is the number one killer of children who are 17 and younger, according to the TN Department of Health’s 2023 Child Fatality Annual Report. Further, this report highlights that firearm deaths among children were reported as about 36% more than the national average.

Gun violence will not stop if we arm teachers, and there is ample evidence that increased access to guns does not make schools safer. According to Giffords Law Center, armed adults frequently mishandle guns in schools. Their study shows that there have been nearly 100 publicly reported incidents of mishandled guns in schools over the last five years, including a case where a teacher unintentionally fired a gun in class during a safety demonstration and a loaded gun falling out of a teacher’s waistband while on the playground. Gifford’s Law Center’s findings show that armed staff does not decrease the number of school shooting incidents. On the contrary, armed staff increases students’ exposure to gun violence in schools.

The safety and well-being of all students is a top priority for us. However, creating safe learning environments through school hardening policies, including arming teachers, is not the answer. A positive school climate results from building strong teacher-student relationships, creating a culture of belonging, investing in counselors and mental health resources, and fostering a supportive learning environment for social and emotional growth.

Creating a safe school community requires us to take steps to protect students’ from physical harm. Elevating students’ proximity to guns inside their classrooms would unnecessarily exacerbate the risks, threats, and the potential for more deadly outcomes across our state. Further, carrying a concealed gun is confidential and barred from public inspection. Consequently, if this bill passes, then parents would lack critical knowledge about their students’ safety and have no say if their children were close to teachers who were carrying concealed guns in their classroom.

Allowing teachers to carry concealed guns is not a solution to address gun violence in our schools. Tennessee has some of the least restrictive gun laws and one of the nation’s highest rates of gun-related deaths. Creating new policies to loosen restrictions on guns will only create further mechanisms to endanger the lives of our youngest citizens.