In the wake of the Newtown tragedy, NRA executive vice chairman Wayne LaPierre stated, “The sole thing that prevents a nasty guy with a gun is a superb guy with a gun.” The NRA also ran ads calling President Obama a hypocrite for sending his daughters to a faculty where armed guards protect the scholars, but not allowing armed guards to give protection to other American public schools. As a matter of fact, Sidwell Friends School doesn’t even employ armed guards.
After seven years of training highschool inside the south suburbs of Chicago, i do know that the presence of police would not enhance the academic experience; as a matter of fact, it might probably diminish it. However 68% of scholars in 2011 reported that their school has a police presence – mine isn’t any exception – these officers are generally more thinking about minor infractions than with major tragedies. Almost none of those law enforcement officials has encountered or directly prevented a sad school shooting. The fact is, because the Secret Service present in 1999 after the Columbine Highschool shooting, most faculty shootings were ended by means rather then law enforcement (pdf) intervention.
Most of my students and fellow teachers understand the desire for one unarmed police liaison to accommodate students who commit serious crimes on school grounds, but are not looking for to look more cops in schools, and positively don’t need them armed. This may only add to a culture where guns are commonplace, making them portion of day-to-day life in preference to weapons for use only when absolutely necessary.
We also know that armed law enforcement officials don’t necessarily make schools safer. A 2006 study of recent York City law enforcement officials showed that, in situations once they were firing at somebody, they hit their marks only 28.3% of the time. La police fared only slightly better that year, hitting their marks 40% of the time. Imagine if a stray bullet from a police officer hit an unintended target other than a violent intruder.
So why is the NRA calling for armed guards in schools in the event that they are so obviously unnecessary The answer’s simple: to direct the talk far from stronger gun control laws and toward security features in schools. More armed guards also means more guns, something that the NRA has a vested interest in bringing about.
On Monday, Congressman Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, and 6 other House Republicans took this one step further and introduced a bill that may fund the Cops in Schools program, which might give a complete of $30m in grants to varsities trying to increase armed police presence.
Putting more individuals with guns in schools isn’t the answer. By increasing police presence at school, we’re guaranteeing that more students may be arrested – perhaps unnecessarily. Increasing police in schools will contribute to the faculty-to-prison pipeline. In keeping with the ACLU(pdf):
“In practice, most faculty police spend a good portion in their time responding to minor, nonviolent infractions – children who’ve drawn on desks or talked back to teachers, to illustrate – in preference to behaviors that seriously threaten school safety.”
Minor issues corresponding to these that was once handled by school officials are actually being handled by law enforcement officials who will arrest students for such minor misbehavior. Students who bring weapons to university or who commit violent crimes on school grounds need to be arrested, for sure, but not those that write on desks or talk back to teachers. One arrest dramatically decreases the possibility that a student will graduate from highschool, and might create a number of different issues down the road.
As Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat, said last month within the first federal hearing at the school-to-prison pipeline,
“For a lot of teenagers, our faculties are increasingly a gateway to the criminal justice system. This phenomenon is a consequence of a culture of zero tolerance that’s widespread in our faculties and is depriving many children in their fundamental right to an education.”
More important, schools shouldn’t feel like prisons. President Obama’s children visit school with armed Secret Service agents as a result of their celebrity status. Their security detail is a need. a safety detail for each student in America isn’t. Rather, appointing armed guards to America’s schools will only make students feel confined in place of cared for. Schools must be places where students be happy to partake of their education, not where they feel unable to go for fear of police.
Vice President Joe Biden appeared on a PBS “Fireside Hangout” recently saying, “We’re not calling for armed guards in schools…we think that could be a terrible mistake.” Instead, he want to see $40m in federal funding for schools to rent mental health professionals and resource officers. Furthermore, President Obama is predicted to name for a ban on assault rifles and restrict high-capacity ammunition magazines. This makes much more sense than having armed officers in schools.
I wish to protect the security of the scholars in my classroom greater than anything, but adding guns to our faculties isn’t the approach to do it. A society that polices its schools adore it does its prisons can only result in students with lives more like convicts than children.
