School Shootings. Let’s Do Something About This.
27 students dead in the past 8 months. 27 students will not get to graduate. 27 students will not get to marry the ones they love or get to pursue their dream career. 27 children, dead. Mourning the loss of loved ones and people who were taken too soon is our instinct as humans. We want to be there and support those mourning. Yes this is all okay, but when are we going to stand up and actually protect our children who are still in these schools? We need to take action now. Some students have stood up about gun control and how the laws need to change. But in reality, someone who is planning on hurting people is going to find a way. They are already breaking the law by murdering innocent people, why would one new law stop them? We need to do something. No law is going to change them so we need to be prepared. To be ready for the next active shooter in our children’s schools we should arm teachers, have security around the school, and put in metal detectors.
We need security in our schools for many reasons. We know we haven’t seen our last school shooting so let’s do something about this so we are prepared. In the article, How is There Not Yet Armed Security in Schools? by Alice Atalanta, she exposes how the only thing that’s keeping schools from getting armed security is denial. Atalanta explains how people of high position do not want to accept the fact that children in schools are always in danger. Continuing that thought, she tells us how everyone who is important in this world is protected by guns. Including the President. Why would we not protect our children the way we protect our president? I think Atalanta is completely correct, the only reason that we do not have more protection in our schools is because nobody wants to accept that this is the reality of our world now, avoiding it will only make it worse.
Arming teachers is a very large debate right now. In the article, These schools say arming teachers ‘can be done right’, written by Nicole Chavez of CNN, she tells us about all the schools who are currently allowing their teachers to carry guns on campus. She explains how after the Sandy Hook shooting, a school in Arkansas wanted to hire another security officer but instead trained teachers how to handle a firearm and how to protect their students. Hiring one security officer would cost the school district $50,000 a year. This school decided to train 13 staff members for $68,000. I believe this is a much better investment because now you have so many more people in multiple places across the school who are constantly protecting and teaching their students at the same time. There will always be someone right there if anything happens. I do not think we need to force teachers to carry guns. I think we should ask teachers if they want to carry a gun on campus. If they do, let’s train them. Chavez explains how Donald Trump has proposed to give teachers who carry firearms on campus a bonus. I think that should be required, these teachers are doing more than the average educator so let’s pay them for it.
Having metal detectors in our schools could be one of the easiest solutions to this problem. In the article, The Case For Metal Detectors in Our Schools, written by Jim Mitchem, he explains to us how this is something that needs to be done. Mitchem is surprised this hasn’t already been put into action. As am I. He explains to us that 27 students have died just in this year from 18 occurrences where guns were fired at schools. And nobody has done anything. Yes they have created new lock down drills that will help stop the shooter. But running and hiding from the problem is not going to solve anything. We need to attack this head on and find ways to fight for these students. Mitchem explains how parents are afraid if metal detectors are installed that students will feel like they are in a prison. Well you know what, I would rather make them uncomfortable rather than having more innocent students shot and killed. Having metal detectors installed is a great start to this long fight, Mitchem explains how it will not stop the active shooter but it will alarm everyone as soon as it happens.
There are so many things that we can do to fight this fight. We all know we haven’t seen the last school shooting show up on the news or even in our own hometown. So let’s get up and do something about it. Laws aren’t changing, not like they would have stopped any school shooter, so let’s take this into our own hands and fight back for our students. Let’s protect our students like we protect the president of the United States. Installing metal detectors is a great first step to stopping this horrible trend. Let’s let the next school shooter know that they are going to have to get through us before they can get to our students.