Julio covered this week how gun control advocates in a left-wing state finally admitted what their whole agenda is about – banning guns and a full-blown gun buyback.
"Guns are the number one killer of children in America, and folks are saying it's radical to ban guns. No, it's actually radical that we've decided to live with this," Saira Rao, president and co-founder of Here 4 The Kids, a gun control advocacy organization, told MSNBC's left-wing host Joy Reid last month.
This approach to guns has stemmed from shootings, specifically school shootings, over the years, such as Sandy Hook and Uvalde. Those in support of the Second Amendment have argued that police presence at schools, as well as more mental health resources, could reduce school shootings. Some have argued that arming teachers would make schools safer. A new survey published this week asked teachers if arming themselves could make schools safer.
In the survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, more than half of teachers said that they believe arming teachers would make schools less safe (via CBS News):
A newly published survey says 54% of teachers believe carrying firearms in school would make kids less safe. Still, 19% said they would be interested in carrying a gun to school, according to the RAND Corporation's survey of K-12 teachers — which would equate to more than 550,000 of the nation's 3 million K-12 teachers.
The remaining 26% said it would neither make schools more or less safe, according to the survey of 973 K-12 teachers conducted by RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, between October and November 2022.
[...]
White teachers were more likely to believe carrying firearms at schools would make them safer, compared to Black teachers. Male teachers in rural schools were also more likely to say they would carry a firearm if the school allowed, according to the survey.
According to the survey, the top concern for students among teachers is bullying.
"Despite the prevalence of anti-bullying programs, everyday school violence is a concern for teachers. Bullying, not active shooters, was teachers' most common top safety concern, followed by fights and drugs," Heather L. Schwartz, a policy researcher at RAND who co-authored the study, said.
In the findings, 49 percent of teachers said their top concerns were bullying and cyberbullying. This reportedly varied by the age of the students taught. Middle school teachers said self-harm was also a top concern.
In April, Townhall covered how an 11-year-old girl in New Jersey committed suicide in a school bathroom after she was allegedly bullied. In addition, her father had passed away just months prior. Days before, a 14-year-old girl named Adriana Olivia Kuch, who also lived in New Jersey, committed suicide after being assaulted by her classmates. In 2022, a CDC study found that more than 40 percent of teens felt "sad or hopeless" during the pandemic.
