Oh look! It turns out that any increase in people being shot in America’s schools is wholly confined to campuses where teachers aren’t allowed to carry. Who’d-a thunk it?
Carrying in a school is no different than in a grocery store, movie theater, or restaurant. Seventeen million Americans have concealed handgun permits — which is 8.5 percent of the adult population outside of permit-unfriendly California and New York. Nobody knows whether the person next to them might have a gun, unless it happens to be needed.
We found 306 cases of gunshots on school property, 48 of which were suicides. Not counting suicides, 193 people died and 267 were injured in these incidents. Four cases were simply instances of accidental gunshots by police officers.
The rate of shootings and people killed by them has increased significantly since 2000. The yearly average number of people who died between 2001 and 2008 versus 2009 and 2018 has doubled (regardless of whether one excludes gang fights and suicides).
This increase has occurred entirely among schools that don’t let teachers carry guns. Outside of suicides or gang violence in the wee hours of the morning, there has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting at a school during school hours. Indeed, the one shooting occurred at 2:20 AM in a parking lot when no armed teachers would have been around.
There haven’t been any serious accidents. No student has ever got a hold of their teacher’s gun, and the one accidental discharge by a teacher occurred outside of school hours. The teacher had only very minor injuries.
– John Lott in Texas Is About to Expand Its Program for Teachers Carrying Guns