LaPierre Gun Control Essay

School should be a place of peace and opportunity, but gaps in the system of gun control threatens the safety of faculty and students. School shootings have killed a total of 297 lives, young and old (Slate Magazine). Gun control has been a continuous nationwide debate for many years. It seems that no one wants to take a stance against guns unless they are personally affected. In order to take control of the matter and prevent more incidents from continuing schools need to change. To achieve a safe environment in schools need to educate faculty, safe and students, heighten security, and assess mental health issues.

Bowling for Columbine film by Michael Moore is a film in which its central argument is that Americans are afraid of each mainly because of the media whose goals are to put fear in the American community. Unlike several documentaries this one is unique; this film is intended to appeal to the audience who are against guns or are pro-gun control and safety. Across this film, Moore’s takes all of the audience through an exploration of the history of guns and violence, and with the big question, we all ask when a young adult commits a violent act, whom should we blame for this? We start off with ethos or credibility.

Numerous studies have been conducted to determine if teachers should be in possession of a firearm while on school properties and if this will decrease the number and magnitude of school shootings. Many scholars believe equipping teachers with firearms will be costly and end up unnecessarily endangering more students, but many scholars claim that a teacher should be the last line of defense against a school shooter. The question this paper hopes to answer is how can equipping teachers who teach grades K-12 help to prevent school shootings in the United States. This paper will attempt to answer that question by examining the perspectives of school administration and law enforcement, the impact on student’s safety and education, the

"You can 't move past it. You can 't sweep it under the rug," expresses a surviving Sandy Hook School teacher. "We have to honor the horror by paying tribute to what happened, what people went through and what it was like for everyone" (Blickley, 2016). The brutal murder of twenty beautiful children and seven brave adults at Sandy Hook elementary school was a tragic event that shook, not only, Newtown, Connecticut, but the whole nation to its very core. However, this grievous crisis was not the first of its kind; since 1999, there have been over 130 shootings at schools. Moreover, the last thirty years, there have been an additional sixty-two mass shootings (each leaving at least four dead). This leaves no room to question the necessity for gun rights reform (as cited in Stinebrickner, pg. 67 CITE). Therefore, America published an editorial titled "Repeal the Second Amendment." The primary purpose of this article is to call for an examination of the implications, advantages, and (potential) consequences associated with the second amendment. Based off of increased mass shootings, extensive research, and keen observation of how other countries have managed the gun crisis, "Repeal the Second Amendement" determines there ought to be increased gun restrictions.

The safety of schools have been tested more in the recent years with news coverage of the most recent incident in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty children and six staff members lost their lives. With the recent rise of school shootings it is no wonder parents are concerned for their children’s safety in schools. Where drugs and peer pressure were once major concerns, in today’s society, we worry about our children dying in the hands of armed shooters. While there is much controversy over how to protect the future of America’s children, lawmakers are supporting a bill to allow armed guards to stand and protect our children in the school systems by creating laws to allow armed security in the schools. “The Indiana amendment's sponsor, Rep. Jim Lucas (R), said he believes mass shootings like the one in Newtown could be prevented by more firearms.” (Resmovits, 2013). In support of armed guards, the National Rifle Association has paid for research

For example, in 1999 thirteen people, including a teacher, were murdered at Columbine High School. Nine years later tragedy struck again at Virginia Tech University where 32 people were gunned down including five staff members. Most recently, a gunman killed 20 innocent elementary students along with six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut (Rostron 439-440). LSUA cannot be the next school to be added to this list. Schools are supposed to be a safe place for everyone and not a high risk danger zone. These school shootings have sparked debates whether or not teachers should be allowed to carry guns in schools to protect themselves, as well as students (Rostron 440). Although guns can do bad things, they can do good things like saving lives. National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierrce says “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (Rostron 441-442). Politicians and the media want us to believe that more harm is done with guns than good and make us believe it’s the gun’s fault it killed someone, not the person who shot then gun (Rostron 454). My solution to fix LSUA’s small amount of security around campus and the

Next, I went to an article by Chuck Baldwin, an American Politician, who disagreed with gun control laws: “Here we go again. We have another mass shooting at yet another “gun free” zone. Not only was the location a “gun free zone, it was located inside the nation’s capital, which has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the entire country,” Stated Chuck Baldwin, (Baldwin para. 1).

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting affected the country’s thoughts on school safety in a way that perhaps no other event has. “President Obama wiped away a tear as he spoke in Washington Friday. 'We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,' he said. 'We are going to have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics.'” (Shock). The people and citizens of this country wanted to be comforted by a trusted government official, so President Barack Obama delivered a speech about gun violence just after the shooting. “‘The only way this time will be different is if the American people demand that this time it must be different, that this time we

Have you ever wondered why someone would pick up a gun and point it at a classmate, a family member, or yet, a child's innocent face. These questions haunted me after I got a message from a friend saying there might be a school shooting tomorrow . I have always known my school to be a safe place, and such news frightened me. A few hours later I got a message from the same friend. This time, she said “the news was a rumor". Even though I was comforted by knowing it was a rumor, I wanted to have a wider understanding of such incidents. After reading a few article I saw a trend, Every Time a school shooting or any mass shooting happens in general, guns become the main topic throughout the nation, and the country gets divided into pro-guns and anti-guns. This event of polarization would continue until the next shooting where people get and more polarized rather than focusing on the issue. But we have to recognize this, what we need to solve is not just what method the shooter used, but the events leading to that decision.

Soon after the 1999 massacre, school lockdowns became widespread and ushered new security measures in school across the U.S. The effort of installing Lockdowns were strengthened after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Instructors and staff members applied these safety procedures to protect students at the school. Students were swept into the storage closets and behind bookcases where they would hide until the situation is fully resolved. Today, instructors are advised to snap off the lights, lock the doors and usher students into closets and corners while the school officials contact the police. In this locked room, students' text one another, play cards or board games or just wait until they are told everything is back to normal. Indeed, since the Columbine shooting, 32 states have enacted laws demanding schools to perform lockdown drills to keep students safe from intruders (Muschert 11). However, over the years, in the past decade, shooting has increased. The introduction of lockdown drills has not materialized in today’s setting as gun control laws have failed. The massive ownership of guns allowed in the Second Amendment of the U.S Constitution has promoted school shootings. Today, students have access to guns from parents and there is no minimum age for owning a long gun. It means even a child can own a rifle. The weakness of legal ownership of guns in the U.S is clear. So, even with

Semeiks briefly describes the feeling of disbelief captured in the poem. But proceeds to inform us that this tragedy was not enough to evoke a dramatic change in the gun ownership regulations. The author points out that even after the Sandy Hook massacre very little was done to strengthen the control on gun ownership. He speculates that the lack of legislative measures seems to be rooted in the American culture of gun ownership, promoted and lobbied by the National Rifle Association (NRA). He searches for the main reasons behind these tragedies, finding them in the American traditions, lack of empathy displayed from Congress and the NRA. However, as Semeiks clearly points out, seventy-five percent of Americans do not own any guns, while some people own a large number of weapons including assault rifles. And that is one of the main arguments behind the demonstrations for restrictions of gun ownership – it is not to limit one’s right to defend oneself and protect one’s property and family, or to limit hunting, but to prevent the loss of many lives. He farther speculates that the questions for restrictions of guns as way of limiting one’s freedom is “a neat trick to deflect the increasing inequality in our society and the growing dissatisfaction and anxiety.” He concludes by mentioning the “shameful failure” of Congress to enact simple gun control legislation and pointing out that sometimes decisions cannot be based only on logic but should be based also on “empathy and

Charles W. Collier’s article, “Gun Control in America: An Autopsy Report”, dives into the controversial topic of gun ownership and gun control in the United States. He uses recent shootings, including the George Zimmerman case and the Connecticut elementary

Slowly and steadily stealing into our lives like a shadowy hoard from the burning bowels of the earth, the fiery debate on gun control threatens to rend our country in two. Both sides often point deadly fingers at motives and character instead of arguments. Beliefs, founded and unfounded, range widely across the board. On one side of this treacherous issue, Mark Follman penned an article for Mother Jones titled “More Guns, More Mass Shootings – Coincidence?” in an attempt to destroy the pro-gun position. However, because he based upon a flawed worldview and some faulty logic, Follman comes to incorrect conclusions.

It is essential that the United States government implement the following three policies to protect the lives of its citizens: mandate a gun amnesty program, require owners to pass tests and insure their weapons, as well as prevent persons lacking mental capacity from possessing such deadly weapons.

In a 225-page study by the National Rifle Association, the idea of having armed guards in schools is argued that it could possibly lower the rate of tragic shootings. In this study, led by Asa Hutchinson, he points out an incident where a high school principal retrieved his .45 caliber from his vehicle and stop a student who was trying to flee from the school after he had shot two and wounded 7 other students (Finn paragraph 6). This school shooting is one example of many that have happened throughout history where armed personnel was present and helpful in the detainment of the shooter.