In Response to the Violence, More Violence Should be Brought onto Campuses
Donald Trump has proposed that teachers should be armed in case of emergencies such as mass shootings, but if the laws are gender biased, what could be the consequences of a self-defense act be?
On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz went in to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with an AR-15 assault rifle. Cruz was a nineteen year old student, who had been previously expelled from the school; he arrived at the school at around 2:19 p.m. and proceeded to shoot up the school. Authorities claim that Cruz shot people who were located in the hallways and inside five out of thirty classrooms of the first and second floors of the building. Cruz would shoot at the students crouched in the corners, those who would be hiding in the closets, and even a teacher, Scott Beigel, as he attempted to lock the door to one of the classrooms. He proceeded by getting rid of his rifle and ammunition and blending in with the rest of the fleeing students in order to get away.
There was evidence that Cruz had showed signs of being a threat to the community in the past. For example, his first host family had warned law enforcement that Cruz has been in situations where he “used a gun against people” and “put the gun to others’ heads in the past.” This was a clear sign of him being a possible mass shooter in his future.
Police have also found that he had, in the past, commented on a Youtube video “I’m going to be a professional shooter”. The Youtube channel belonged to Ben Bennight who works for AFAB Bail Bonds in Mississippi and is familiar with criminal activity and law enforcement. When he stumbled upon the comment, he proceeded by taking a screenshot of the comment and reporting the post. He then contacted the FBI, but since it was only a screenshot of a simple comment, there wasn’t much information that he could give. Five months later, one of the more disastrous shootings occurred at one of the safest cities in Florida.
As a result of Cruz’s actions, there were a total of seventeen people who lost their lives, including a football coach. Along with the fourteen eager students that lost their lives were the football coach, Aaron Feis, geography teacher, Scott Biegel, and the athletic director, Chris Hixon. The students and widows were brought to tears when they were interviewed about their staff where they described them as their “friend[s] and hero[es].”
Lucinda Joy Peach wrote about a couple theories in her reading, “Is Violence Male? The Law, Gender, and Violence” that consisted of how the laws being created are male, violent, and gender-biased. She rooted her theories on the experiences of women both in private lives and in the military. Specifically, one of her theory stated that the laws were designed and written for men by men with little to no regard for the interests and needs of women. Her second theory stated that the laws disguised violence because of its reliance on reason instead of the use of force or coercion. But, even with these two theories, there was no explanation as to why laws recognized women as only victims when it came to violence.
The examples that Peach based her arguments off of consisted of women that experienced sexual harassment and/or physical violence in the military by fellow military personnel or in the privacy of their homes by their spouses. It is believed that women do not belong in the military lifestyle and are unqualified to contribute to the national defense. They would undergo sexual harassment and abuse by drill sergeants and recruits, and even after the incidents, they were still only seen as victims and nothing more. In a household, women go through rape, sexual abuse, and physical abuse from their spouses, and one would believe that it is a situation in which it is acceptable for women to use self-defense. But, that isn’t the case. When a woman uses violence against her attacker, she is seen as mentally unstable and murderous, and when they cause serious bodily harm or death to their abusers they are treated more harshly than men are for similar offenses.
With so many shootings that have occurred in our society, the president, Donald Trump, believes he has found the solution. He proposed to arm school teachers in an attempt to stop such an incident from affecting countless lives. He uses the example of airline pilots and claims that allowing pilots to “carry and conceal guns [has] demonstrated the measure could be a success.” The problem with that is that Trump is trying to avoid such a violence with more violence. There is so much wrong with having thousands of teachers carrying guns to campuses, and in an incident such as what occurred at Parkland, Florida, what would be the consequences if a female teacher was to cause “severe bodily harm” to the attacker? Would society focus on the attempt of a school shooting or the fact that an adult killed a kid?
If we refer back to Peach’s reading, we will find that laws are gender biased and can cause more problems than one. Does this mean that only male teachers would be allowed to carry weapons since the females are seen as incapable of doing so? Or, are the female teachers going to be prosecuted if they were to kill the attacker, in an act of saving the lives of a number of other students? The only answer for such disasters is simple, and it does not involve having teachers carrying weapons on school grounds. We need gun control, and we need it before any more innocent lives are taken.
