Columbine High School Shootings

The summer concludes and on the first day of school a student walks into his or her classroom and spots the teacher carrying a forty-five caliber handgun. This instantly changes the climate of the classroom. The issue with violence on campus started years ago with the Columbine High School massacre and continues today with the recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It seems like every time someone turns on the television there are reports of a new school shooting. These school shootings lead to discussions on how to stop similar shootings from happening in the future. In these discussions some people advocate for arming teachers while others believe that placing armed guards at schools will resolve the issue. In response to violence

Another argument deals with children confiscating the gun. If a student finds the gun they have the potential to start their own shooting and might take it home with them, putting himself or herself and others at risk. Russ Moore (2014), a licensed gun owner and the school principal of Shaker Junior High School, claims that guns could be retrieved by students and used inappropriately: “Don’t think for a minute that a secured gun, secured in a school, would be inaccessible” (para. 9). Moore continues by declaring that the gun has to be reachable by teachers and administrators in order to be used in defense (para. 9). Furthermore, guns located nearby in a classroom or certain accessible areas are easily discovered. Suddenly this leads to the chance that the weapon could end up in the wrong hands with a student securing it or the assailant finding it and increasing his or her weapon power. Some think that innocent children would not touch a gun or know how to use it, but Ken Corbett (2013), an assistant professor of psychology at the New York University, proclaims, “Kids get their hands on guns, and they know how to use them” (para. 7). As a matter of fact, Corbett also includes a 2010 FBI homicide statistic in his article: “The most up-to-date FBI homicide data indicate that of the 1,448 children who died as a result of gun violence in 2010, 165 of those deaths were at the hands of other children” (para. 7). A little over eleven percent of those deaths were caused by other children, nonetheless, those 165 deaths could have been avoided if the guns were secured or not