School shootings are terrifying and a big problem in today’s society. Schools have added lockdown drills, bullet proof glass and metal detectors. School should be a safe area for children to learn instead of fearing for their life. Instead of buying metal detectors and hiring more officers, there is a much easier solution in order to decrease and prevent school shootings. We have to be more alert about securing weapons at home and being aware of suspicious behavior at school in order to keep children and faculty safe. As a child left for school one morning, his parents thought that he had been acting very odd and different. Even with their suspicion, they said goodbye and let their son go to school.
It wasn’t till later when they had noticed an empty spot in their gun case where a pistol and shotgun used to sit. They rushed to the school and while searching through the halls for their son, their ears echoed with a gunshot from one of the classrooms. Following the gunshot, they rushed into the classroom and immediately disarmed and physically detained their son until police arrived. The only damages the son had caused, was a plate-sized hole in the ceiling. If the parents had gotten to the school even one minute later, their son could have been labeled as a murderer.
It is sickening to know that a child was able to sneak past his parents, teachers, and students with two firearms on his body. His parents were lucky they arrived when they did because many of people could have been hurt or even worse murdered. Obviously, the child that brought the two firearms to school should be the one punished, but what about the parents. The parents that did not have a weapon that could easily end someone’s life, properly locked up or hidden away. If parents are going to carelessly leave firearms unlocked with ammo nearby, what is stopping a child from doing wrong with that firearm? Leaving firearms unlocked with any aged child around, hoping they don’t touch it is a dangerous and irresponsible act.
When school shootings occur, the individual that brings the weapon to school should be the one punished. However, when the parents irresponsibly leave a firearm unlocked they should face a punishment as well. “68% of school
The safety of schools have been tested more in the recent years with news coverage of the most recent incident in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty children and six staff members lost their lives. With the recent rise of school shootings it is no wonder parents are concerned for their children’s safety in schools. Where drugs and peer pressure were once major concerns, in today’s society, we worry about our children dying in the hands of armed shooters. While there is much controversy over how to protect the future of America’s children, lawmakers are supporting a bill to allow armed guards to stand and protect our children in the school systems by creating laws to allow armed security in the schools. “The Indiana amendment's sponsor, Rep. Jim Lucas (R), said he believes mass shootings like the one in Newtown could be prevented by more firearms.” (Resmovits, 2013). In support of armed guards, the National Rifle Association has paid for research
On a normal day at a normal school there it was, several loud bangs. A student with a pistol came around the corner and into a classroom. The teacher tried to go for the gun in his desk, consequently, it was in a locked drawer. By the time he reached, it it was too late, the teacher and five students were killed before the assailant was taken down. Teachers should not have guns during school hours for the following reasons, it won’t get rid of school shootings, it's uncertain if teachers can be trained on how to use them, and it won't improve school safety.
Teaching at a typical small town school in rural America one day, shots ring out. Active shooter drills come to mind, but what do we do, where do we go, how many students are present? Panic sets in. Thoughts of hiding, running, calling out for help and screaming all flash across the forefront of the mind when a person can be seen walking down the hall with a large gun in hand. No one ever thinks it could happen in a town, school, or church like ours but when the act is committed everyone feels the betrayal. Although schools from elementary to universities have adopted drills for active shooters and have routes with plans drawn up we never know how we will truly react until the time comes. Armed guards stand at the ready at most entryway doors but they are only one person and can not be everywhere always. In a recent study of active shooters for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, J.Pete Blair and Katherine W. Schweit have said, “The second most common incident locations were in educational environments…and the study results established that …these incidents involved some of the highest casualty numbers” (20). Crime is always a threat to education and defending our students nationwide should be a priority. The trouble begins with the fact that the school shootings are becoming more regular. Allowing teachers to be armed gives administration, faculty and students a more successful chance at survival against an active shooter in our education systems.
Guns are becoming one of the top issues in the newspapers (The Monroe Evening News). There have been 394 incidents of students bringing guns to school in the United States since 1998 (Sutton). Legislators say that the law cannot prevent the tragedy of the fatal shootings in the schools
In the 2012 school shooting of Newtown Elementary School twenty children and multiple staff members were senselessly killed by a crazed gunman. No one in the school was armed. No one in the school had the ability to defend themselves. Take a second a think about something. If you are a school shooter are you going to go to a school that allows teachers to carry weapons or are you going to go to the school where guns are not allowed?
Numerous studies have been conducted to determine if teachers should be in possession of a firearm while on school properties and if this will decrease the number and magnitude of school shootings. Many scholars believe equipping teachers with firearms will be costly and end up unnecessarily endangering more students, but many scholars claim that a teacher should be the last line of defense against a school shooter. The question this paper hopes to answer is how can equipping teachers who teach grades K-12 help to prevent school shootings in the United States. This paper will attempt to answer that question by examining the perspectives of school administration and law enforcement, the impact on student’s safety and education, the
There have been several gun shootings in schools and students and teachers shouldn't be scared to go to school. Schools shouldn't have to have high security to keep things like this from happening. There needs to be stronger enforcement on this topic and there needs to be better punishments or ways to keep people from doing this.
Imagine being in the family’s shoes when hearing through media reports that their child was killed in a school shooting. If teachers had the option of being equipped with the handguns, then that child (and the rest in the classroom) would have survived. How many more times are we going to learn about a deranged gunman walking into a school loaded and ready to kill? How many more innocent children need to die before we wake up and give our teachers the prospect to fight back? The only resolution is to grant our teachers a fighting chance. No shooter is going to target a school that can protect itself and fight back. Every second counts in a school shooting. Calling 911 and anticipating for police to arrive isn’t good enough. Spartanburg County South Carolina Sheriff Chuck Wright says, “Our form of justice is not making it. Carry a concealed weapon. That’ll fix it” (Miller, Fox News). Then there was Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. who lately created a nationwide uproar for advising citizens to master how to manage firearms so they can protect themselves, because he says, “simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option” (Handelman Fox 6 Wisconsin). What happens when the nearest police unit is 10
School should be a place of peace and opportunity, but gaps in the system of gun control threatens the safety of faculty and students. School shootings have killed a total of 297 lives, young and old (Slate Magazine). Gun control has been a continuous nationwide debate for many years. It seems that no one wants to take a stance against guns unless they are personally affected. In order to take control of the matter and prevent more incidents from continuing schools need to change. To achieve a safe environment in schools need to educate faculty, safe and students, heighten security, and assess mental health issues.
An evolving and highly debated problem that continues to grow in our society, is the gun control epidemic. Gun violence in America is a national epidemic. Many people carelessly take advantage of Gun use and manipulate the tool without much thought to any repercussions. Many lives have been loss due to people legally or illegally obtaining guns and taking matters upon themselves to be executioners in holding other people's lives in their hands. Specifically, ongoing gun violence in schools have become a horrific catastrophe. It is putting student lives at risk, in a place that is supposed to facilitate a certain level of safety for the students. According to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, there was 558 gun incidents in schools
Gun control is not the solution to prevent shootings at schools. Acquisition of firearms by minors is already illegal and is considered a crime, yet shootings by minors are still happening.
According to an article from the U.S News, written by Susan Milligan, Guns are not only for the typical criminal. Milligan starts her article off from a recent news story about a twelve-year old pulling out a shotgun in his middle school injuring two students she than continues to explain that the boys teachers did not perceive him as a criminal but an intellectual boy. Milligan’s problem with gun control derives from the easy access to guns for children and the criminally insane. Milligan explains multiple examples of criminals coming in and opening fire in a public setting such as a grocery store (where a man in Indiana shot two people with a semi automatic before police arrived killing the man) and a movie theater (where a man in Florida shot and killed a man In the theater for refusing to stop texting.) Milligan provides solutions to the outcomes of the
Over the past decade school violence has been on the rise. School violence has always existed in some form or another, whether it is a fight out on the play ground or a stabbing in the parking lot. However nothing got the nation's attentions like the April 20, 1999, Columbine school shooting. Ever since that day the nation wants to know what to do to protect the kids in this country. Many schools have gotten increasingly stricter on their policies, especially the schools that have more money. What about the schools that cant' afford metal detectors and security officers? American public schools are not safe, and need to have greater security measures to ensure the students' safety.
I woke up in the morning to my brother crying, my mom as drunk as ever and my dad passed out on the couch. I lift the sheets off of me, the air is as cold as usual, it feels like my whole body is an iceberg and the only way to keep it warm is to lay in bed, but I get up anyway. I step onto the wood floor and it is even colder than the air, but I ignore it, I look in my closet and find something to wear. Then I step into the hallway to see my mother and yell at her for being drunk again and she just waves lazily like she always does. I hear a noise in the living room and notice the tv news is on the people are saying that there have been school shootings and kidnappings, but then my dad falls off the couch, bangs his head on the small brown table next to the couch and curses and I forget about the school shootings and kidnappings. He catches my attention, I walk over to him and He gets up and looks into a mirror outlined with wood.
In addition to the Gun Free Zone policy, this tragedy shows why banning staff from being allowed to carry guns at school and the idea that only law enforcement should protect schools is flawed. One such person who does not advocate for the arming of school staff is Amy Givens in “Missing the Mark: School Personal Should Not Armed” she asserts that “Due to the significant risks and unintended consequences that arise with equipping school personnel with guns, the proposal is not in the best interest of schools or their students” (210) There is no doubt that risks when firearms are present are always a concern. That is why in the case of arming staff, the proper training and safe storage of firearms are essential. She goes on to say that, “the notion that school employees provided hours of firearms training on firing, handling, and holstering a gun somehow makes a non-law enforcement officer suddenly qualified to provide public safety services is an insult to our highly trained police professionals. It is not reasonable to believe that a modicum of training will prepare school personnel to handle a firearm in an emergency situation as a trained law enforcement officer would” (211). To dispute this, while naming possible solutions Nadia E. Nedzel adds additional reasons to why letting staff members arms themselves instead of just letting law enforcement such as armed guards protect the school is a more viable solution to mass shootings at school. In “Concealed Carry: The Only