Students Sound Off On Actions that Could Help Solve School Shootings

Senior Carlan Gray: The epidemic of gun violence has recently reached its peak in the United States and the call for change has occurred, but what must we, as a country, implement to achieve change? One change I feel must be made is to end the legal sales of assault style weapons. Assault style rifles in the hands of average humans is nothing but a crisis waiting to happen. Also, it seems wholly ridiculous that at the age of 18 years old, you are permitted to purchase a firearm, especially when legal drinking age is 21; so if you’re 18, go ahead and purchase a gun, just make sure you don’t drink. This is absolutely crazy to me and if we as a country fail to realize this, then we have little common sense about safety. Lastly, the ability to purchase a gun must be more difficult. There must be more tests and analysis of whether a certain individual is cable of possessing a gun. Again it appears profound that there are more requirements to have a driver’s license than to own a firearm. The lack of restrictions to possessing a firearm seems fundamentally wrong and must be changed. But, will the government do what’s in the best interest of safety or finances?

Sophomore CJ Simione: Although technology and knowledge against guns is great to prevent against school shootings, they are not enough. Teachers and students can’t be fully equipped mentally for what occurs at shootings. When I heard that my school was implementing equipment such as the Night Lock system that go into the ground to make the door more sturdy and alarms that directly contact the police, I was beyond skeptical. Even though these are great safety features, and I’m sure that they will enhance the chances of a shooting not occurring, the features are not fully insured; there could be flaws inside of them. For instance, the sturdiness of the door is great, but what if the intruder chooses to smash the window instead? Or what if the intruder stays hidden enough as to not be seen on cameras? These are all risks that are not worth taking.  As far as the sale and purchasing of firearms, I believe it is way too simple of a process. Even if the gun is not fully-automatic, it can still do harm in the cases of school shootings. The plan to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining a firearm of any kind is relatively easy. I think that a test should be created for all people who wish to own a firearm. The test would be designed in such a way that it tests not only the taker’s mental stability, but also their past with firearms. Along with this, there could be a portion of the test that can help the person if they are indeed mentally unstable. Therapy sessions could be made, and plans could be made in the future regarding the patient’s future with firearms. Some may look at these changes as “unnecessary” or overly protective, but when it comes to the lives of innocent people, you would rather be overly cautious than unprepared.

Senior Emmet Sheehan: After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed, there has been a call for ‘Gun Control’ and common-sense reforms. High school students have led the charge to petition legislators across the United States. The unfortunate piece of this story is in its results. Our legislators have rejected conversation and any piece of legislation that rears its ugly head in state and federal congress. This is, in part, because we either have forgotten or have not lived through historical discourse around guns. Students today were born in in the early-2000s this means they weren’t politically conscious until this past election cycle or, at the earliest, halfway through the Obama years. This means that our most public advocates for gun control, the students, have not heard the prevailing narrative that democrats are proponents of a socialist mommy-state that will destroy all of the freedoms that we enjoy as an American people. The main argument for this is that Republicans, in 2008 and 2012, argued that Obama would take guns away with the same phrasing of ‘gun control’. They used that same argument in 2016. Now, high schoolers are using the same phrasing and they haven’t heard previous arguments. To actually advocate for changes in current policy, these students would do well to make their arguments explicit and not rely on glittering generalities. The left-wing arguments for bans of assault-style rifles versus more moderate approaches to expand background checks are very different but fall under the same claim of ‘gun control’. It will make a larger splash if these students could make a comprehensive proposal with their protest. Only time will tell if they succeed in this movement.

Sophomore John Adamczyk: With all these school shootings occurring around the world, and the recent one in Florida, the world is panicking. Some people say that we don’t have enough gun control laws, some people say that we have too much. It’s a problem that is never-ending. In my opinion, there is not nearly enough gun control laws. Why should someone be able to buy an assault rifle in the United States? That’s the question I always ask myself, and I am always dumbfounded at the thought. There is absolutely no reason why someone should be able to own an assault rifle. I could see having assault rifles at gun ranges, but we need to make sure that they stay there. Some people say they have it for self defense, but in reality, it would probably be easier to use a pistol. Why wait until another attack? Why wait until another 20 kids die from a school shooting? I just don’t see the point. Another thing I think they should review is how parents are taking care of kids with mental health concerns. If your kid has a mental health concern, you should never let them even have access to a knife, let alone an assault rifle. Even the smallest concern could make them turn the corner, and do something drastic. The bottom line of all of this is that their needs to be stricter laws on guns, and assault rifles should not be sold in the U.S. Another solution would be for parents whose kids have even the slightest mental health concern should be watched more, and cared for more.

Senior Jordan Rheingrover: In society today, we have this idea that guns and people are the problem. The protests we see are aimed at the fact that the NRA controls the sales and the availability to purchase guns in general. I believe that changing the way we buy guns and eliminating them from our society still doesn’t solve the fact people will still have the ability to buy guns whether it’s legally or illegal. I believe they should make it harder to buy guns via the use of background checks. I do believe that that schools should be safe and should have access to police faster than the regular 5 minute response time.  When people respond with saying we should ban guns, I respond with there is no way to prevent these violent actions from happening, because anyone could do it. If it’s not guns, it’s bombs, knives and other weapons that people will use. People tend to point fingers in the wrong directions and try to find a person/people that are responsible. Keeping people aware is a major key in keeping schools safe. I do believe that security in schools hasn’t really been a political issue until this year. My point is, now that every media stations have grabbed national attention over the Parkland school shooting people decided to point fingers at the NRA, Government, Trump, and others. Mental illness has played effect on this specific topic as the media made it known that the Parkland school shooter had a mental illness which means he shouldn’t have been able to get a gun and proves he shouldn’t have been exposed to guns or any type of weapon. My opinion on all of this is, this does not matter whether you are Republican or Democrat or what race, we all stand together on keeping people safe and if we continue to fight and argue we will not serve the purpose of the protests. We need to understand as people that kids are a main priority and that security systems need to be in place and people need to be aware of who is coming into and out of schools. I believe that arming teachers isn’t the solution, I believe that would cause more conflicts then help the ones that have been occurring within our society. These actions by the Parkland school shooter are not preventable. We need to come together and understand that these things will happen no matter what. Schools should be required to have security systems that have access to police within seconds not minutes. We, as people, can make change.

Senior Khalil Weathers: There has been a lot of conflict and arguments over gun laws in the United States due to the school shooting at Parkland High school in Florida. But, guns are not the problem to me. The problem is solely the person behind the gun.  I went to a Pittsburgh Public School called Obama Academy and we had to go through metal detectors and guards to check bags before you enter the school. There was never a shooting inside of Obama but someone was caught with a gun on them walking back into school after he came back from skipping a period. There is nothing that can stop them other than tighter security in that school. Schools should have metal detectors and security guards to search bags for everyone that enters the school. This way will prevent plenty of opportunities for people to bring guns, knives, drugs, or anything harmful to the human person in the school. Taking guns away from everyone will solve nothing. It may decrease the amount of deaths or injuries due to gun violence but just like everything else that is illegal that people still have, guns will be able to be acquired just as well. Most people have guns for recreation or to defend themselves and some may never even be shot by the person who owns them because it was never necessary. It would not be fair to take away guns from citizens who use them for reasons other than harming others just to keep them out of the hands of people that do use them to harm others. Those people need to evaluate themselves because their minds are not in the right state but regardless the only way to keep a school safer, which is the problem at hand, is to tighten the security in schools

Senior Louis Tierno: So many things need to happen to fix this problem. The government can’t just take everyone’s’ guns and expect that to fix it. Sure some countries have done this and it has worked but they don’t have the same type of culture that we have. If we take the guns away, people will just go to bombs or knives. Obviously adding restrictions on age and mental health can help this problem but if they want to hurt students, they will find a way. Changing laws can only do so much, we need to change the mentality. We need to solve these issues before they get to this point. The one thing that can be put in place to solve this issue is taking care of the people. No one that kills an innocent person is right mentally and this mental disorder can be fixed before they kill anyone. Obviously it is hard to reach out to every single citizen and give them a psych evaluation yearly. We can do so much more. If we could just change mindsets not only in those with mental health but those without it as well. They can reach out to the individual and talk to them and try to help them. That is all it takes. I can only assume why this person committed this but it is probably because he was bullied at that school and that is what led him to do this. If they hadn’t bullied him then maybe this wouldn’t happen. At the bottom line, there needs to be a mentality change in every single person in America and it isn’t until that happens that these shootings will happen.

Junior Michael Byrne:  We hear of shootings every day, on the streets, in homes, and in schools. Gun violence faces America each and every day. To reduce gun violence in America, stricter background checks are a must. Along with better background checks I think guns that are able to be purchased by civilians should be limited down to handguns and hunting guns. Guns are still important for self defense, but there is no reason that anybody needs a gun larger than a handgun. The only problem with restricted guns down to handguns is: How do we get back the 3,000,000 guns that are already out there?

Senior Ryan Haggerty: How many more kids need to die before we realize that this is an issue that is, while albeit not entirely fixable, treatable. Australia had one mass shooting in the 90s and subsequently passed gun ownership reform. Guess how many they have had since then. Zero. The United States has the most gun violence of any wealthy nation, and the fact that the NRA is so powerful does not alleviate the stress of knowing that there are people who should not have any weapons carrying assault style weapons with bump stocks. After a shooting is “not the time for policy” say the Republicans. But, when an immigrant commits a crime, they are all over it. The fact that someone can walk into a school in Newtown and murder multiple young kids, perch in a Las Vegas hotel and mow down over 50 people with modified assault rifles, and kill 17 people in Parkland, is abhorrent. The telos of a gun is to kill. It is as simple as that; they were made to kill. Sure, let’s not take away handguns or shotguns or low-power hunting rifles. People do not need bump stocks, high capacity magazines, nor high caliber rounds. In other words, people should not be able to kill multiple others in such a short amount of time. A good guy with a gun does not necessarily stop a bad guy with a gun. Do you know what does? No gun.