Schools Should Be a Safe Place for our Kids

Another school shooting, another day of “thoughts and prayers”. It’s sickening to me that our children, teachers, and school staff need to fear violence simply going to school. Yes, violence can happen anywhere, but the fact that schools are specifically targeted is disgusting. This is an issue that doesn’t necessarily start in our schools but too often this violence is brought there.

We don’t need more guns, or safe rooms or bullet proof backpacks. We need more mental health resources, more crisis intervention and tougher gun laws. I understand it is our right to bear arms, but those rights still have limits. Our limitless right to bear arms is infringing upon the health and well-being of our children. Gun violence is the number one cause of death in U.S children according to the CDC reports, surpassing motor vehicle death in 2020. The rest of the world is not facing this type of violence. When are we going to make changes that will make it harder to access firearms?

I am by no means an expert in violence reduction, but I don’t think that research has shown that more guns in schools will help. I think that if we teach children at a young age empathy, compassion, love and the value of human life and help those in crisis instead of just punishing what we view as bad behavior we may have fewer individuals who only know how to deal with their feelings using violence.

I can only hope that we never have to deal with this type of tragedy personally, but unfortunately there is no part of our country that is immune.