School Shootings
Sandy Hook is one of the deadliest school shootings in the US history, resulting in the death of twenty six people (5). There have been seventy four school shootings only during the eighteen months after the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012(4). Even though less than 1% of youth homicides take place in a school setting, it can cause long term damage to the students and school staff members(6). Students who witnessed school shootings are more likely to resist returning to school, have sleeping problems and to develop the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.The federal government should interfere to protect our students and stop school shooting.
One of the most common answer to the problem is strengthen gun laws (1). The solution suggests that making it harder to buy/register a gun will probably reduce school shooting as it will be harder for minors and psychos to obtain arms. People would be required to have a mental check, a background check, to lock up the gun and to undergo mandatory training before being allowed to own guns in their homes. This solution is built on the believe that guns are the main reason why school shootings happen. In reality, such a law will help reducing unintentioned crimes not the planned crimes. The law will help teaching the good citizens how to use guns correctly but criminals do not follow the law and they will find an illegal way to commit their crimes. The fact that committing a mass in a public place by a gun is easier and more than using a knife, that is why people blames guns. Gun violence and gun homicides in the US are at a warning more frequent level than almost all the modern nations in the world (3). It is seven times higher in the U.S. than in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The cost of regulating firearms in the law is the violating the second amendment and it seems impossible to convince the Americans to sacrifice the amendment.
Improving school security can be another alternative to restricting the right to bear arms. supplying schools with metal detectors and security guards is one of the solutions we have. This solution ensures that no arms will enter the school and if that happens there are trained security men to deal with the gunman. There is a theory that schools are targeted because it is a gun free zone, the gunman is not expecting any power to stop him/her. Improving these security measures to all the schools in the US will require lots of money that could be used on improving other places with higher risks than the schools. These security measures -if applied- will change the familiar school environment as it will be more like an airport. The students, the teachers and the parents will be subjected to kind of security check everyday and it will be a long tiring process. This process also will be a violation to the fourth amendment that protects people’s right against unreasonable searches.
Another alternative is arming the teachers and the staff members. This solution have been used by Israel since 1974 and the results are impressive(2). In the year 1974 gunmen attacked a school in Israel and killed sixteen teenagers and since then the school teachers are allowed to carry guns. Since this change, there have been no attacks on an Israeli school but an unsuccessful try in 2002. An armed teacher stopped the attack and it ended with no killed or injured citizens. There are also some cases in the US were school shootings were stopped by armed staff members. In 1997, vice principal Joel Myrick stopped the gunman at Pearl High School from killing more students. The problem is the teachers are not well prepared to face this type of situations and without a strong training problem, arming the teachers can be a increase the risks of school shootings. In case of emergency instead of one gunman, the school will have two gunmen shooting which will increase the possibility of students getting injured and/or killed. If we will arm the schools because being a gun free zone attracts criminals and killers then the country should arm every organization and institution in the country for protection.
Arming teachers is a better alternative than the other two alternatives. The first alternative is good but there is a big possibility that a criminal reaches an illegal gun and then the situation will be the same. Arming the teachers will make the schools ready all the time for either a criminal with a legal gun or minor with an illegal one. It is true that a teacher can happen to have a “bad day” and use the gun to attack the students instead of protecting them but the chances are not high compared to the chances of criminals obtaining illegal guns. Using the teachers to secure the students and the school will be better for the children because they are familiar with the teachers. using security guards with uniforms and detecting points will make the students uncomfortable and they will feel that the school is suspecting all of them. The solution can work by asking for two or three teachers to volunteer to be trained on how to use a gun to protect the students. This solution will be much cheaper than paying official security company and installing metal detectors in all the schools because probably the teachers already have their own guns which can be used in the process.