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fter last week’s shooting in Orlando, I—like many others—have been trying to figure out how to respond. School is out, so my normal reaction to this—bring in an article related to the debate and read, write, and discuss with students—isn’t available. Some others feel this isn’t appropriate, to be speaking so openly about guns and violence with kids. However, we can’t afford to ignore it.
There is always a focus on schools as sites of possible mass-shootings.
After Newtown, CT the school that I then worked at began to finally lock the front door during all hours except when students arrived in the morning. This was a common-sense measure and I felt better about my safety and that of my students.
This year my students and I endured three lockdown drills at my new school, as well as one active shooter drill with only the faculty involved. This too, though it was disruptive to the schedule and unnerving, makes us safer overall.
Due in part to a fire started by arson at the school a few years ago, teachers are instructed to keep kids from taking backpacks into the classrooms, unless they’re see-through. I’m unsure if this makes us safer. It certainly causes students to feel that they’re not trusted.
Some gun-rights advocates want to go further than these measures and post armed security guards or police within schools. Still others want to arm teachers.
I want nothing to do with those people who claim that more guns for law-abiding citizens equals more safety.
I don’t want a gun in my classroom, even if I’m supposedly “trained”; I don’t want any of the security guards at my school to carry guns.
Sure, there have been some instances where your average citizen with a gun has defended themselves from another person who has attacked them or others. This is—anecdotally at least—possible. However, I believe that the price of this (illusion of) safety is too high.
As anyone who is trying to de-escalate an argument knows, if you introduce a weapon, you automatically increase the chances that someone is going to get seriously harmed, perhaps even killed.
Rhetorically I will ask, How many arguments between two previously law-abiding citizens have escalated into murder and manslaughter because one or both carried a gun or a knife and thought “their life was in danger”? How many simply used these weapons as an outlet for their anger?
More guns in the hands of citizens does not equal further safety, and especially does not equal safer schools.