Last week's school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was an absolute tragedy. The same can be said when any child loses their life, but when it is compounded and multiplied in an event like this, it is even more harrowing and heartbreaking. As expected, the community and the nation at large are renewing efforts to try and solve why this keeps happening and what can be done to stop it.

The blame game has gone into overdrive as people have taken sides as to what they think is the root cause. Many have taken sides and entrenched themselves into believing that it is either the gun laws or mental health issues that need to be addressed.

The only certainty is that people claiming to belong to one of those two categories absolutely will not hear the other side or compromise in any way.

There have been a number of ideas floated around on both sides as to what can be done. No idea has been more dangerous, though, as the recent calls for arming the teachers. Yes, the science teacher who spent their entire career studying science and teaching children should now be required to carry a gun to work to protect themselves.

Absolute disaster idea

It goes without saying that flooding schools with guns is a crazy idea. However, that is just what President Trump and others in Congress are slowly starting to call for. How this could end in anything but a horrific disaster is beyond me.

Let's start with the teachers themselves. No knock on any teacher, but the vast majority of them cannot feel comfortable with bringing a gun to school. Even with limited training, expecting teachers to become pseudo armed guards in the event of a school shooting is asking for even more violence.

If a S.W.A.T. team were to enter a school and find a student shooting it out with his teachers, how does that make the rest of the school safer?

These incidents are abhorrent, but fighting violence with violence is usually reserved for the battlefield of war, not the classroom. God forbid a teacher accidentally shot an innocent student during such an incident. It has to be considered as once again, these are teachers, not police officers.

Potential for abuse

Another major issue with this idea is the simple fact that not all teachers themselves are mentally capable of being firearm carriers.

All it takes is for one teacher to snap on a student during a heated confrontation and all of the sudden the very idea to protect students has now left one dead. This isn't to say teachers would willingly abuse their power of carrying a weapon, but why even risk it?

What if a student found the teacher's gun, as it was not locked properly, and used it to harm their classmates. Would the teacher then be criminally culpable? I would expect yes, but again it shouldn't even get to that point. Many of today's school shootings happen because a student finds a gun at home that an adult did not properly lock away.

Real solution

A real way to combat this problem would be having trained guards in the school.

Someone who is well trained with firearms and how to de-escalate potentially hostile situations. Knowing when action is needed and when intervention can prevent violence.

The answer to who that person is would be members of the US military. There are countless American soldiers who are homeless or unemployed when they return home and this would be a great way to protect our children, while also battling the issues our soldiers face when returning home. If someone is qualified to fight and die to protect our country, surely they are more qualified to protect our children than the average teacher.