Argumentative Essay: Gun Control And School Safety

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
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
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 maintenance 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