Resulting with 12 dead and 20 injured, April 20th, 1999, ultimately became the day of the worst high school shooting in U. S. history at Columbine High School, prompting a national debate on gun control and school safety. According to the article Columbine High School Shootings “In the aftermath of the shootings, many schools across America enacted “zero tolerance” rules regarding disruptive behavior and threats of violence from students (History. com). ” In addition, there have been many more strategies used to prevent such events from happening in the future.
Educators and the police focus on suggestions such as training, raising money for emergency preparedness, training school bus drivers in security and hardening school buildings’ vulnerability and anti-bullying programs. Parents and politicians focused more on providing security officers as well as bullet-proof glass, metal detectors and video surveillance cameras for school safety. However, AntiSecond Amendment supporters would agree with Kenneth Trump, President of National School Safety and Security Services, who recommends school districts to not allow teachers and school staff to be armed.
Whereas Second Amendment supporters wish to allow teachers and staff the right to carry an armed weapon for defense on school grounds. While we can find a common ground between suggestions from educators and police compared to parents and politicians, it’s almost impossible to find a happy medium between Anti-Second Amendment supporters and Second Amendment supporters. This is mainly because of the fact that the only argument is whether or not teachers and staff would be allowed to carry armed weapons on school grounds during and before or after school hours.
The reason to allow teachers a weapon is to ensure safety of the children as well as themselves in the case of an emergency where there is an unknown person on school grounds with a weapon. Anti-Second Amendment supporters also wish to advocate requirements on the sale of weapons and complete background checks on the individual purchasing the weapon, in comparison to Second Amendment supporters that protect a civilian’s right to own a handgun for the purpose of self-defense. In my own opinion, I believe teachers and staff at any school or district should not be allowed to carry a weapon on school grounds.
The reasoning is because there are other ways and other suggestions such as ones from parents to provide security officers and surveillance cameras that are safer for the children as well as the staff. Allowing teachers to have weapons only makes the environment more threatened and school security worse. For example, if a teacher is not properly handling the weapon or putting it in a safe place away from the children, a student can find it and accidentally hurt another student, teacher or themselves. Hiring guards to secure the perimeter and outside for any suspicious activity.
After the Sandy hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, according to an article published on www. usnews. com. “… President Obama, who has seen by his count four large-scale shootings in his first term as president, suggested that his administration would take action towards more gun control (U. S. News)”. AntiSecond Amendment supporters would support that statement and announce that more weapon regulations indicate that the United States has a higher rate of gun deaths than any other country.
However, Second Amendment supporters would argue that the Second Amendment does not drawback any regulations prohibiting owning or using the types of weapons used in recent multiple killings and school shootings therefore “Many argue that if more citizens carried weapons, criminals would be less likely to commit violent crimes.. (U. S. News)”. Many of the Second Amendment supporters would also accuse mental illness for the school shootings and crimes being committed, and not fault the use of guns and weapons that these individuals have purchased.
With that said, mental health advocates have responded to that accusation; “From this review, we critically addressed 4 central assumptions that frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings: Mental illness causes gun violence, Psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime before it happens, US mass shootings teach us to fear mentally ill Joners, and because of the complex psychiatric histories of mass shooters, gun control “won’t prevent” another Tucson, Aurora, or Newtown (Metzl and MacLeish). In conclusion, agreeing with Second Amendment supporters and sharing the same ideas on the topic of improving school security because it is not the weapon causing the crimes to be committed, it is the mental state of the individual. However, putting a gun in the hands of an individual with a mental illness also needs to be noticed and settled, and that’s where the statements from Anti-Second Amendment supporters intervene.
Instead of debating over allowing guns on school grounds or regulations for purchasing a gun, educators and police have decided that training, raising money for emergency preparedness, training school bus drivers in security and hardening school buildings’ vulnerability would improve school security. Parents and politicians focused on physical things such as security officers, bullet-proof glass, metal detectors and video surveillance cameras for school safety.
The difference between these suggestions are mental and physical, to explain, training someone how to be safe and to ready the staff for a response to any emergencies, lockdowns, evacuation procedures, and student threats compared to actually installing a safety device such as cameras and bulletproof windows. In regards to the parents and police suggestions, In the article School Support Staff Security and Emergency / Crisis Planning Training, Ken Trump writes “National School Safety and Security Services offers specialized support staff emergency preparedness training for secretaries, custodians and aintenance staff, and food services staff. This program has been designed to be conducted in a series of one or two hour sessions (longer if time permits) per employee group (separate sessions for secretaries, custodians and food services staff) in a manner respective of time constraints for staff release from buildings. Sessions will be specific to each employee group roles and responsibilities in security and emergency preparedness (Trump)”.
This training allows staff to be prepared to make a quick judgment and safety calls in order to ensure the safety of the children as well as themselves in an emergency situation, it’s a mental process they would be trained to learn and act upon. Another process would be to develop more attention to threats to school safety from bomb threats and text messages involving rumors about violence. Only then to also have another program focused on going beyond police to secure large and/or athletic events.
Coaches, staff, athletic directors, security officers and activity coordinators would be trained in case of an emergency as well. Anti-bullying programs is another suggestion on the list, learning how to increase parental confidence, to address the situation, and keep away from media. Resulting in reoccurring board meetings focusing on emergency planning and different steps towards improved safety. Physical effects would be those such as security cameras, which in the article School safety and security measures, it declares that only 75% of schools in the U.
S are using cameras as a form of school security and exactly 93% of schools have complete control of access of the school. An article called School Security from tssbulletproof. com indicates that “The most cost-effective and sensible solution for most schools is to secure the main entryway (Total Security Solutions). ” Bulletproof windows are good because they can definitely be the difference between whether someone gets killed or not and the shooter getting into the school, and that’s a big deal.
The next recommendation was metal detectors for everyone to walk through before entering the school, even the students. There are three pros and three cons to the topic of metal detectors in schools. The pros being giving administrative the chance to find weapons, it being a visual discouragement to violence and it creating a more comfortable learning environment towards everyone. To further explain, a staff member during school hours cannot detect a weapon such as a gun or knife in a student’s pocket just by walking by them.
Being that the metal detector can detect any type of metal that walks through it, students, anybody who enters, will be less likely to even try to get past the detectors with a weapon in their backpack, knowing it will be seen. To conclude, more students will be given a peace of mind knowing it is very unlikely that the student behind them has a weapon and could attack at any moment. Metal detectors can bring positive effects but can also bring negative outcomes as well. Including, creating a natural crowded gathering that is perfect for violence, not every weapons can be detected by metal detectors and they can be costly to install.
A huge crowd where a lot of people would get hurt is sadly the best place a shooter or someone attacking would want to be, since it’s very possible to make almost anything into a weapon, it’s also very possible you could have a weapon that would not be detected. These detectors would cost the schools a couple thousand dollars, not including hiring staff to operate and watch the machines everyday. It is also believed that communication between teachers, parents, children and community decision makers is a key thing to have in case of an emergency, targeting mass media, emergency alert systems and social media.
The common ground between these two different forms of security is focused on the fact that all of these suggestions are equally important and can affect the school’s security in a great way. Both types of security, mental and physical, play a huge role in keeping the school safe and one is not as reliable without the other. The preparation and training for any emergency situation is the most reliable and it works the best at giving schools security. In other words, a metal detector does nothing if the individual operating it is not trained to handle the problem incase a weapon is found.
Bulletproof windows are a great thing to have and can give the school and peace of mind while walking down the hallway, however, what happens if the shooter gets through and no one knows how to handle the situation because they were not trained. Everything leads to the staff, teachers and even students knowing exactly what to do in the case of an emergency, without this knowledge, bulletproof glass and metal detectors will not help. However, video surveillance is a great way to track where the shooter is going and to try and detect who the person may be.
