PRO

by: Alex Sletten

Seventeen students are dead. Fifty-seven people are dead. Forty-nine people are dead. Twenty-six people are dead. These are the headlines we read every couple of months, and then Twitter and other social media sites light up with the thoughts and prayers for victims of yet another shooting. This has become a regular event, and that is disturbing.

But what do we do about it? How do we stop someone from turning a school into a graveyard? There are many ideas about how to stop future tragedies from occurring including raising awareness about bullying, providing more security around schools, and even repealing the 2nd Amendment. But are these ideas just ideas, or will they actually work? Let’s look at the data.
Australia has had only one mass shooting since 1996 – the same year the country passed a sweeping set of gun regulations, reports Tara Francis Chan, a writer for Business Insider. The United States has the most guns per citizen – 112.6 guns per 100 residents as well as more mass shootings than any other developed country in the world reports Kara Fox, a writer for CNN.

Teens as young as eighteen in the U.S. have the potential to buy an AR-15 with minimal background checks in some states, yet U.S. federal law states a person cannot buy a pistol until the minimum age of twenty-one. However, just days after the shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Florida House chose not to debate a bill banning the sale of assault weapons. Additionally, even when the Florida legislature got it right and did pass new gun legislation, they still did not ban assault-style weapons.

My question is this: in what universe does it make sense to set the minimum age of purchasing a pistol at twenty-one years old, but an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle – which could potentially be upgraded to mimic a fully automatic weapon – at just eighteen? That’s not a universe I want to live in.
Congress has an important job in making sure that tragedies like the Parkland shooting don´t continue to occur; yet they have failed miserably. Now is the time for U.S. citizens to truly fight for what common sense should tell someone is the best thing to do: ban assault rifles across America!

The AR-15 is not a hunting rifle and it is not for target practice, it is used to gun down innocent civilians in movie theatres, schools, and at concerts. It is time to get rid of something so freely accessible yet nobody except trained personnel should ever be able to obtain. It is time to stop these mass shootings once and for all.

CON

by: Joshlyn Guzman

Due to the recent abundance of shootings – including another massacre at a school – gun reform is a topic that’s been heavily seen on the news and other social platforms. As a result, it is time to take care of this issue once and for all. However, the answer is not what many think it is; the answer is that it is time to take the privilege that comes with the 2nd Amendment into consideration and upgrade security in school.

The right to bear arms and protect one’s self is a provided by the 2nd Amendment. Altering gun laws could be met with extreme alternatives and have a serious effect on this. The right to bear arms is an inalienable right, so instead of changing the laws, we the people should learn to respect it. The truth is, even if gun laws are reformed, people will obtain guns illegally. Schools will continue to face threats regardless of how the perpetrator obtained a weapon, legally or illegally.

Change incites more change. The more a person stirs left, the more the right comes back. The point here is that if we decide to change something that’s been around for so long, there will be extremism from the opposite side – in this case the right.

Guns allow people to feel safer at home. Intrusion, robbery, rape and murder are all terrible crimes that could happen in one’s own home. On one’s own property, we are provided the right to protect ourselves. Weapons do not ensure our safety, but they can play a major role in whether one becomes a victim of a violent crime.

Many would say keeping guns legal and available isn’t the answer to a gun problem and that’s agreeable. However, increased security is the better answer. Guns aren’t the only threat to security, especially school security. There are many other weapons that could jeopardize school safety.

Just as we have safety systems at home, we need actual safety technology at school. Most schools have front office entrances and many doors – often propped open or unlocked – which makes it easy for those trying to get in. Also, cameras are not constantly monitored unless an incident like a fight occurs. Some schools have implemented police officers – School Resource Officers or SROs – at school, which can have the effect of criminalizing students rather than assisting in emergency situations.

As technology is changing, we must modernize schools and add technology to protect them. Stronger protection such as bullet proof glass, automatically locked doors, tighter restrictions on school access, and a new protocol for how students respond to emergency situations must be brought in. Students need more safety than just hiding under a desk. Schools need to work with police in areas such as linking access to cameras in case of an emergency and response time to threats. Guns are dangerous, that’s for sure, but so are people. Making sure that the perpetrator or perpetrators are caught before a heinous act occurs requires more than gun bans, it requires stronger security.