Schools Wrestle With Issue of Armed Guards

Among the what-ifs being asked after the March 21 shootings at Red Lake High School is one with uncomfortable implications for many school leaders: What if the two security guards posted near the Minnesota school’s entrance had been armed when the 16-year-old student gunman entered? Would the carnage by Jeff Weise that claimed the lives of one guard, a teacher, and five other students have been averted?

Interest in the complex question of whether schools need armed personnel is high among administrators, according to Ronald D. Stephens, the executive director of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit group based in Westlake Village, Calif., that advises and trains districts in security practices.

“The issue of firearms keeps coming up,” Mr. Stephens said. Nationwide, he said, “it really is a mixed bag whether or not school security personnel...