Yes, more than 30 states allow teachers to carry guns in school

On Sep. 4, a 14-year-old student opened fire in a Georgia high school, killing four. In April, Tennessee became the latest state to pass a law that would arm teachers in schools. In the wake of these events, some people argue that arming teachers would not only deter school shootings, but also help protect students in the case of an active shooter situation.

A VERIFY reader asked on Facebook if it was true that more than 30 states allow teachers to carry guns in school.

THE QUESTION

Do more than 30 states allow teachers to carry guns in school?

THE SOURCES

• Giffords Law Center, a nonprofit organization that supports gun control

• U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA)

• State departments of education spokespeople for Delaware, Pennsylvania and Mississippi

• Office of Alabama Governor Kay Ivey

• Local news reporting

• The RAND Corporation, a research group

THE ANSWER

Yes, more than 30 states allow teachers to carry guns in school.

WHAT WE FOUND

There are 31 states with laws that could allow teachers to carry guns in school. However, teachers in most of these states need permission from their school district and/or individual school before they can carry a gun to school.

Some states don’t explicitly mention teachers in their gun laws but do allow “school employees” more generally to carry guns to school if they’ve received training or are in a specific program. Most of these states still require the school employee to have permission from the school or district.

There are 31 states that allow or may allow teachers to carry guns in public or private schools, according to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association (USCCA), state officials and Giffords Law Center, a nonprofit organization that supports gun control.

There are 29 states that permit teachers to carry guns in schools. They are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming.

The USCCA says that Arkansas and Oklahoma only allow teachers at private schools to carry guns.

The overwhelming majority of states that allow teachers to carry guns require school teachers to get permission from either the school or the district first. And some states also require teachers to get special training, or to be chosen for a particular school safety program before being allowed to carry on school property.

An Oct. 27, 2023, report from VERIFY partner station 11Alive found just three of 180 Georgia school districts permitted teachers to carry guns at that time. A March 31, 2023, report from the Ohio Capital Journal found that 22 Ohio school districts of the state’s 600 districts permitted teachers to carry guns in schools. In June 2018, Firearms Owners Against Crime said that 217 Texas school districts, 21% of the state’s more than 1,000 districts, allowed staff to be armed.

The RAND Corporation, a research group, could not find any credible studies showing that laws allowing armed staff in schools either increased or decreased school shootings and violence in a Jan. 10, 2023, research review.