WILL arming teachers stop school shootings? Donald Trump certainly thinks so.

He wants to look at the “possibility of giving concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience”.

Setting aside for a minute the wider, more fundamental debate about the difference between the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and the right for troubled 19-year-olds to legally buy AR-15 assault rifles, there are so many problems with this idea.

Will people who have dedicated their lives to educating young people be willing to carry a gun, let alone fire it with the intention of killing when faced with a potential attacker? How could the weapons be prevented from ending up in a student’s hands? Many schools already have armed guards – including Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, the scene of the latest atrocity – so how much of a deterrent would armed teachers be anyway?

Mr Trump has directed his administration to take steps to ban “bump stocks” which enable rifles to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute, and yesterday said he will push for better background checks and raise the minimum age for buying some weapons to 21.

Although unlikely for a president elected on the back of the National Rifle Association’s millions, Mr Trump should also to look at reinstating the Federal Assault Weapons Ban which made it harder to sell and market the guns, but expired in 2004.

The only certain outcome of arming teachers will be to sell more guns, and make more money for the gun industry.