Fight To Arm DBA

A graduate student leaving an evening class walks along the poorly lit sidewalk to the parking lot—it is a long, cold walk in the pitch-black night, and the student grows wary as shadows begin lurking in the distance. Suddenly, someone jumps out in front of the student, immediately threatening her with force. Before the student can react, she is raped and robbed. This is a very scary scenario, and one that happens on the SCSU campus every year. It seems like every week we get an e-mail citing another attack on students somewhere on or near campus. However, all of these attacks could be prevented if we allow students to carry guns as a means of self-defense.

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.

Some are afraid that by placing guns in school zones, more deaths and homicides will occur. That by giving administrators guns the chance of a shooting will increase tremendously, but the truth is by not placing guns on school property, we are increasing the chance of having our children and loved ones being shot. By allowing our administrators to carry guns in schools, we decrease the chance of someone walking into that school and possibly injuring or killing our students and teachers. The Superintendent David Hopkins of the Arkansas district stated “ The plan we’ve been given in the past is ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best’ That’s not a plan”(“Guns in School” #2). Locking the doors and hoping for the best is not the best way to protect the students and teachers. Arming a number of administrators and allowing them to protect themselves and students is the best way to be

School shootings are a common occurrence on daily news. Students shouldn’t terrify going to school with the mindset that a shooter will show up with intention of killing people. Ideally, students leave home for school to learn, and not worried someone will come in and shoot everyone. When I was younger I would go to the bathroom worried a shooter would enter my school leaving me alone in a life or death situation. School security improvement is extremely important because children should feel safe and never in danger. Also, schools need better ways of helping children feel safe when they come for six hours everyday. More could be done for students, not only as prevention from shootings occurring but from relieving young children of unnecessary anxiety.

Unfortunately, the notion of schools being a safe place is no longer a trend across American schools. Disturbing mass shootings in the U.S continue to shock the media. A school shooting is when someone attacks a school using a gun. The Secret Service says these shootings are "deliberately selected as the location for the attack". The reasons massacres occur in schools is because of poor security, violence in video games/media, and bullying. Shockingly the U.S. has the most school shootings than any other country in the world. According to the FBI, mass shootings occur, on average, every 2 weeks in the U.S. While the cause of school shootings are sometimes unpredictable, it is a growing issue and they need to be prevented. Most shooters don’t have mental issues, they have a plan to kill, so there is no singular cause that creates violent people. On April 16th, 2007, the most deadly school massacre occurred. Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-two students at Virginia-Tech. As Americans, we no longer should turn on the news and witness these gruesome murders. We try to make sense of these murders, but it’s ineffectual. There are measures we can take as a society to help. The number one question in a school massacre is, "why would a person that has a capable sense of mind even do that?” It is our moral responsibility to fix these issues. In order to stop this problem, we need to find its roots.

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

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

Since those horrible days in 1966 and 2007 there have been at least 6 other major shootings at American College Campuses. Among those six, a custodian shot and killed 7 people while injuring 2 at the California State University on July 12, 1976. Also involved in a horrific shooting, Douglas Pennington was a parent of 2 students of Shepherd University. He killed 2 people before committing suicide. Some say this is reason enough to prohibit the use of guns all together, but there is still a voice that rings out heavily across the Nation- nearly 3 million voices, to be literal. That voice is the N.R.A. (Jost, 2007, 126)

Thirteen people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999, thirty-three died during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, and twenty-seven people, twenty of whom were children no older than seven, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 (Kirk). These name only a few of the larger and most well-known school shooting incidences. In total, 297 people have lost their lives due to school-based shootings since 1980 (Kirk). Although this number may be small in comparison to death by guns overall, these instances are completely unwarranted and it is likely that they could have been avoided or at the very least reduced. These people, college and high school students, teachers, and even children, might still be alive today if our

This is really not the solution to the problem but it will make it more dangerous to live in the university serenity than even before the shooting. A concealed permit for carrying guns by the students or other college staff should not be allowed in any manner as it will make way for possibly more violence on the universities and campuses.

Although eight states have passed provisions allowing concealed weapons on public campuses and several other states allow campuses to decide if they are allowed, instead colleges should take a holistic view and approach to provide a robust security program, safety training, communication network and guidance on behavior awareness for faculty and students. As States continue to pass campus carry laws the colleges continue to funnel the majority of their focus dedicated to passing the law. This has eroded and overshadowed the end result, which is to protect students and faculty. Campuses should not allow students to carry guns on campus. By providing this false sense of security it dilutes the opportunity to implement tools, train and provide strategies to improve campus safety.

The idea gained traction “primarily based on our location and the amount of time it would take an armed response to arrive on campus”. A large number of people have been polled on this question, and it appears that law enforcement time to respond an emergency was an important fact in their decision to college’s president considered when decided to arm their police campus officers. Just as important, James McBride affirmed at Law Enforcement Publications and Conferences that parents and students are beginning to ask more questions about safety and security before they make their final

In his press conference, regarding the Sandy Hook shooting (2012), Wayne LaPierre, a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, argues that it “…is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school.” LaPierre develops his argument by focusing on counterargument, by refuting the negative connotations of guns and conceding that “….there is no national one size fits all plan.” His purpose is to call for a plan of action in our schools, which revolve around armed security men, in order to illuminate that guns are not always malicious. He addresses American citizens, because he challenges them to act with the National Rifle Association regarding their plan of action.

As we all know on August 1, 2016, the new law “Campus Carry”, went into effect giving the right of a person that holds a license to carry may now carry on campus. Many Universities and Community Colleges are inputting policies to keep all staff and students safe. These policies will give the ones that carry to be responsible on campus with their firearm. Even though, I do not agree with the new law, if these steps are put in action I will feel safe. The changes that should be put in place is for one to have the person carrying wear some sort of identification. Then, at the entrance of all buildings metal detectors should be installed. Last but not least, require all that do partake in carrying on campus to register with security in a database.

Hello Michelle, I do agree with your point about student shouldn't carry a gun into the campus. That could lead to another problem. And yes, we always have the police force to keep us in safety. You also wrote about a good point "how the schools will go about knowing who has a license or not". It's true. We can't ask the staff and police go and check one by one everyday to make sure people doesn't carry gun illegal. In personal, I feel student will have more fear if they doesn't have a gun like another.