Abstract
Mass shootings in schools generate both widespread public concern and a demand to “do something.” Among the most controversial of responses are policies permitting teachers and staff to conceal carry firearms at school, which have gained traction since the 2018 shooting in Parkland, FL. Polls regularly find that the public broadly, and teachers, students, and administrators specifically, do not support such a policy, but have failed to consider perceptions from law enforcement. Using a nationally drawn sample of law enforcement, the present study finds that officers overwhelmingly support armed teacher policies, but such support is contingent upon concerns related to training. School resource officers are less likely than those in other roles (e.g., patrol) to support arming teachers, as are individuals in supervisory positions.
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Notes
The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was passed as part of the Crime Control Act of 1990 (see § 1702). The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 was passed as part of the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 (see § 14601).
This project was approved by the Texas State University IRB under proposal # 7382.
The following states were not represented in the sample: CT, NM, ND, SD, VT, WY.
Nix et al. (2019) state that there is no accurate metric of what constitutes a good or acceptable response rate for law enforcement surveys. They further caution that survey findings from law enforcement samples should not be dismissed due to what is traditionally considered a low response rate (Nix et al. 2019, p. 542).
Oblimin rotation was chosen over Varimax as it does not force factors orthogonally (which is sometimes an unrealistic assumption for factors).
The race variable was collapsed to two categories (White [n = 296; 81.54%] and Other than White [n = 67; 18.46%]) due to low numbers of “Other” races present in the sample.
Open-ended responses were coded dichotomously for any reference to training.
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Schildkraut, J., Martaindale, M.H. Should firearms be allowed in K-12 public schools? An analysis of law enforcement’s perceptions of armed teacher policies. Secur J 35, 1288–1307 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-022-00327-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41284-022-00327-4