Our schools, where our sons and daughters go to get their education, should be just as protected as our banks. We are barely three months into 2018 and already there have been seventeen school shootings. On average, there has been one school shooting every week. Schools are considered easy targets because they are gun free zones. How many more children must die because of the lack of protection students have in schools? In the constitution of the United States, the Second Amendment gives the people of the United States the right to bear arms. Congress needs to allow school staff members to have weapons in order to protect their students.
Many districts, in different states, have already begun to allow school staff members to carry concealed weapons. In South Dakota school staff members are becoming “school sentinels”(Chavez Para 11) in order to protect their students. School administrators say that if a shooting were to take place the staff members would have a “fighting chance”(Chavez Para 13) against the shooter. Before staff members are allowed to carry a gun on campus they must go through 80 hours of use of force, weapons proficiency, legal aspects and first aid classes. In texas, about 172 districts allow school staff members to carry concealed weapons. That is about 16 percent of the Independent School Districts in Texas that allow their staff members to carry a gun on campus. On June 14, 2013 Texas passed the Protection of Texas Children Act. This Law was passed to help prevent another massacre like the one that happened in Sandy Hook Elementary School. The law allows one armed personnel for each 200 students or each building. If a school employee volunteers to be a school marshal than they must have the proper licensing and certification by the TCOLE (Texas Commision of Law Enforcement). Before the school staff member is allowed to become a school marshal, the law requires them to attend 80 hours of training. During the training the school employees are shown how to keep students safe and prevent a school shooting from happening. They are also trained how to use violent force if they come to direct contact with the school shooter and how to properly use a handgun. If the employee regularly has to be around a huge group of students than they must keep their gun locked and secured safely where they can be able to reach it. The armed school staff members are only allowed to get their gun when the use of deadly force is necessary and can be justified. Students from the Callisburg Independent School District, a district in Texas, say that they “feel safer knowing their teachers can protect them if the unthinkable happens”(Chavez Para 18). The TASB (Texas Association of School Board) has told districts to take certain things into consideration like for example the distance from a police station or other emergency agencies. The Christoval Independent School District took the distance into consideration and ended up arming its staff in 2013.
In Arkansas, Clarksville School District, has had staff members like janitors and teachers ready to respond to an active shooter for four years. The program is a good way to discourage shooters from entering a school that has personnel carrying guns. After the Sandy Hook shooting Clarksville School District wanted to hire an extra full time security guard but they could not afford it. Instead they trained about a dozen staff members how to use a weapon. Training all thirteen staff members cost the district sixty eight thousand dollars, when the program first started, and hiring a resource officer would of cost them fifty thousand dollars a year. It was cheaper to train multiple staff members than to just hire one officer. In the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting the schools armed resource officer, Scott Peterson, did not enter the campus while the shooting was taking place. Instead him and three other sheriffs had their guns out and were behind their vehicles.
School personnel can not rely on law enforcement professionals to respond quickly in case of a school shooting. The people who are more likely to respond faster are the people at the school. Data shows that on average a school shooting lasts up to three minutes. It takes the police five – eight minutes to arrive at the crime. Just like Scott Peterson many officers will not engage the shooter or enter the campus as soon as they arrive. By the time the officers decide to enter the campus and approach the shooter, many students would already be dead or wounded. Highly skilled teachers, or any other school personnel, can deal with the shooter immediately and decrease the chances of someone getting killed. People like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey say that having guns at school is not “conductive to a positive learning environment”(Pratt Para 2). Seeing a mentally ill person like Adam Lanza who likes to shoot up schools is not a good environment for learning either. The school staff members are the last line of defense against the shooter. Teachers must be armed in order to protect their students and others in the school. Staff members should be trained how to properly use a weapon so they can be ready at all times.
Pilots are allowed to carry a concealed weapon in their cockpits to stop hijackers from taking complete control over the plane. In case of another terrorist attack, pilots have been given the resources to not only protect themselves but the passengers flying in the plane. Although the chances of a plane getting hijacked has decreased because of airport security, people can still pass through security with some kind of weapon, it is only a matter of time. Let's be honest a plane can easily be hijacked if no one is there to stop them. Arming pilots makes it even harder for terrorists to take complete control over a plane. Many Pilots are heavily trained, and have military backgrounds which means that the pilots are going to use their guns responsibly. Opponents that are against arming pilots will suggest that using stun guns, tasers, would be a better option because it disables the terrorist for a few minutes. The problem with using Stun guns is that it will not stop four highly trained terrorists that are determined to use the plane as a weapon, the stun gun will only disable them temporarily.
The Pilots are responsible for the safety of their passengers. If the passengers trust the pilot to fly them safely to their destination, than why should they not trust them to have a gun in the cockpit for security reasons. Air Marshals have been used in the majority of the flights in the US and Canada. Air Marshals are always armed when they are on the plane. The purpose of Air Marshals are to keep an eye on the passengers and stop a problem before it becomes too dangerous in order to prevent innocent people from dying. Putting Air marshals into the skies decreases the possibility that a plane will be hijacked by a terrorist. This means that arming pilots would not be necessary, but although Air Marshals are well trained to deal with different situations, they can still be killed or captured leaving the cockpit defenseless. Also not all flights have Air Marshals in the plane, and even the best security can still be breached. If the Air Marshal is defeated than the only person that is able to stop the terrorist is an armed pilot.
The FFDO (Federal Flight Deck Officer) program trains pilots to carry concealed weapons in the cockpit. The Federal Flight Deck Officer pilots are trained to shoot and kill anyone who tries to break in or does not have an invitation into the cockpit. Pilots are the last line of defense of protection of the plane and the passengers on board the plane. Putting 2,200 Air Marshals into the air costs one billion dollars, but the Federal Flight Deck Officer program is given about twenty three million dollars and is able to put an estimated 2,300 armed pilots in the skies. After 9/11 pilots were allowed to have a gun in the cockpit in case a hijacker tries to steal a plane. Imagine how differently 9/11 would have been if the pilots had guns in the plane. Pilots receive training on how to deal with the hijacker. Pilots learn how to shoot and how to disarm hijackers who have weapons of their own. The pilots train in an area that is about the size of a photo booth. They do this in order to simulate the small amount of space that is in the cockpit, so the pilots get a taste of the real thing. People that are against arming pilots will argue that the terrorist will take the gun from the cockpit and use it against the pilot and the passengers. That is true, but by the time the terrorist breaks into the cockpit they are already equipped with everything they need to kill anybody that gets in their way of their mission. Publicizing the Federal Flight Deck Officer program has discouraged future hijackers from trying to steal a plane. The program has been a very successful deterrent.
Since arming pilots has worked so well to prevent terrorists from hijacking planes, congress should arm school staff members as well to help prevent future psychopaths like Adam Lanza from shooting up schools. Just like how the Air Marshal can be killed leaving the cockpit defenseless, the peace officer on campus can also be killed leaving the school defenseless. Having a couple of the school personnel armed can serve as extra security to protect the students and stop the shooter right away. People may argue that arming pilots is different than arming teachers. In both situations both teachers and pilots are trying to prevent innocent people from dying whether it is a terrorist attack or a school shooting. Gun free zones are being easily targeted because no one in that area is armed. People like Adam Lanza target schools because they are gun free zones, and know that they will not be challenged. Gun free zones are practically begging a psychopath to come to their area and start shooting at the people around them. Imagine how many young student lives could have been saved if school staff members were armed. If schools began publicizing that some of their personnel is armed, than most likely less people would try to shoot up a school.
Gun free zones honestly do not work at all, because either way someone always brings a gun to these areas and starts shooting at people like if they were ducks that they were shooting at in a carnival game. Gun free zones just means that good people that are trying to protect themselves are not going to be able to protect themselves at all from the grim reaper. Criminals simply do not obey any laws that are put into place, because that is simply how they became criminals in the first place by not following the laws. They especially do not obey strict gun free zone laws that are passed to keep guns away from those zones. Knowing that, why are these gun free zone laws still active? All it is doing is disarming the people who do follow the rules rather than disarming the ones that do not follow the rules. Would someone rather have one person illegally carrying a weapon and start killing people, or have a variety of people legally carrying a weapon with a permit to protect themselves in situations like a school shooting. Not all school personnel would be allowed to have a gun with them, only the ones that are qualified to handle carrying a concealed weapon with them would be approved to have a gun in campus. Only administrators and other school staff members would know who is carrying a gun on campus. Students would not be informed of who has a gun so the chances of them taking the guns would decrease. Teacher or other school personnel are not going to have their gun on the desk or somewhere visible to a student. The gun will most likely be locked away. Gun free zones simply do not work at all. If they did work than schools like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School would not of had to experience a school shooting. Gun free zones are just meant to make the people living in that area feel better and safer but in reality they are not safe. If someone is living in a gun free zone that doesn't mean that they are safe. A sign that says, “Gun free zone”, is not going to stop a criminal that is carrying a gun. A sign that says, “Armed personnel in this property at all times”, is more likely to discourage the criminal from entering the property. In Chicago the majority of the areas are gun free zones and has one of the strictest gun laws in the country, but last year there were more than 4,000 victims of crimes that involved guns. A criminal that is armed is most likely going to commit a violent crime in an area where people are unable to defend themselves because they are not armed.
In 1993, Bill Clinton signed an executive order that disarmed soldiers in military bases. In 2009 Hasan Gilbert, a US army major, killed 13 people in Fort Hood, a military base in texas. The soldiers were not carrying weapons because of military policies. If the soldiers were allowed to carry their weapons, which all soldiers should be, they would of been able to kill Hasan quickly. Military bases are supposed to be gun free zones, only certain soldiers are allowed to carry a gun, and yet hasan was able to easily purchase a gun and enter the base with it. This proves that gun free zones simply disarms the good people and not the bad people. Guns should be allowed in school to prevent school tragedies. Arming school staff members will protect the students. If only one school officer is armed and their are more than 2,500 students on campus, that one officer cannot protect them all. If multiple teachers and school staff members were armed, than most likely more students will live to see their parents again. The idea of arming teachers and other staff members is not to convert schools into a battlefield, it is simply to add an extra layer of security so future school shooters can take that into account.