February 14, 2018; Valentines day; a day to celebrate love and life. For many it will no longer have the same meaning; forever.
On this day, a 19 year old boy walks into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida and commits the unthinkable, mass murder. This has opened up debates nation wide regarding school safety. As I am a very strong proponent of this, one question needs to be asked, are we ever truly safe in any environment? We must first consider, and remember, no one is guaranteed the next second, we only have this moment. But this does not mean that we should not do any to help provide the next second for us. In the days since this incident we have seen a rise in the calling to make our schools safer. Issues coming to the forefront, again; gun control, armed offices on campuses, arming teachers. Emotions running high and strong, as they should be, even I have these emotions.
The hardest part to all this is, how do we move forward? The first thing that needs to be accomplished is the simplest, yet the hardest. Give time for us all to heal from this tragedy. Dealing with any issue when emotions are high, usually results in actions that may not be the best; for anyone. Objective reasoning and research is the best approach to resolving an emotional issue, and one that is at critical as this. After all, no parent wants to send their child into a high risk setting; schools should not be high risk.
Proposed solutions to this issue has been; more gun control, more officers on campuses, and even arming teachers. When looking at these concepts, basic question must be answered before any action is taken. For example, has gun control worked? There are many examples of this to examine, but most importantly is, what did our founding fathers think of these ideas? Why did they write the second amendment if it was not important enough to them? In the world many nations have offered gun control, how successful has that been? Switzerland has a great program and laws. They even have a lower incident of gun homicide then the United Sates (Swiss – .5 per 100,000 inhabitants; US – 5 per every 100,000 inhabitants)*. Another suggestion to correct this is mental health concerns. This is perhaps the most complex of all the ideas offered. After all, mental health diagnosis is so dependent upon the practitioner and their education and experience. The question that needs to be asked is, how effective can this be in preventing these situations. Let’s look at placing more officers on campuses, how feasible is this? In Arizona, we cannot afford to give our teachers a reasonable salary for the amount that they invest in their education to be able to do their jobs. This is a perfect example, a teacher with 10 years experience and a Masters degree, received a contact for the 2018-2019 school year for under $43,000. So we will expect this district to add more officers? What kind of logic is this? What about arming teachers? Has anyone ever heard of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program? This is a program that could be adapted to accomplish this goal, and it has a successful proven track record. This solution would not increase expenses for the districts, especially if the state paid for the program, since it is a type of “law enforcement” certification.
This whole situation is so very tragic, yet it comes down to one thing, is there anything that we really can do to prevent these incidents from occurring? This is a question that each of us must ask ourselves.
* https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/florida-school-shooting_what-can-the-swiss-teach-the-us-about-guns-/43923350