The year 2017 is solely responsible for 346 mass shootings in the United States. As a teenager currently enrolled in a high school, I keep myself aware about shootings in the media, especially when they take place in schools. I don’t know how others can just look away after hearing about incidents such as the Sandy Hook shooting. Any of those twenty innocent six to seven year old kids that lost their lives could have easily been one of my little brothers. All of my friends and I are also very vulnerable to a shooting simply because the possibilities of a teenager getting hold of a firearm is extremely high. In the U.S. alone, approximately 4.6 million minors live in a house that has an unlocked, loaded weapon. Teenagers easy access to guns makes school shootings a possible threat all across the country! The possibilities of a school shooting happening is sadly attainable and unpredictable; therefore, the government needs to reduce the availability of weapons while the schools should indepthly practice evacuation drills and implement metal detectors.

Most importantly, schools should arrange a complex escape plan that they can teach and practice with the students. A school shooting could break out in any area, so students must be prepared to escape or hide in any location on campus. Threats take advantage of situations where students are in places around the school they are not usually in. For example, on February 14th at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a student lured others outside by pulling the fire alarm. If the students are not priorly taught to evacuate in a constructive way than smaller kids could be like deers in headlights to another kid ready to fire a gun. The best way to prepare for a situation like this is requiring all teachers to thoroughly inform their students how to react to an attack anywhere on school grounds. A detailed escape plan would include all these routes which would best prepare teachers and students for life-threatening situations before they even take place. This may seem over dramatic and as a big waste of time. However, it is easier for the school to teach my little brothers evacuation plans, than it is for the school to explain that the reason my brothers got killed was that they could not find a safe way out of an insecure area. In my opinion, running through extra escape drills is always worth it if it will decrease the time in which students of all ages would be vulnerable to a possible threat. Being a high school student, I would expect you to presume that I am well aware of how to react to a shooting at my school. However, I have never been part of a thorough evacuation drill testing whether or not we would know how to independently act in an emergency. If schools practiced evacuation drills as little as three times a year, their students would be prepared to quickly find safety in an event of a real shooting. Time is valuable when we are talking about little siblings and best friends! Creating an emergency route and thoroughly practicing it would prepare students to escape a threat, ultimately saving a number of students lives.

    Additionally, installing metal detectors at all entrances of schools would decrease the chance of a weapon entering, while reinforcing the school’s sphere of safety. Since the home lives of many students are very depriving and complex, school can be looked upon as a warm escape from their chilly homes, unless students are sneaking weapons into school to turn into a place of bitter violence. A very common way for someone to sneak a gun into school is simply by putting it into their backpack and walking in through the front entrance straight into the lunchroom where three hundred students are seated. Schools allow it to be too easy to bring in weapons and put students lives on the line. For instance, on June 10th, 2014 at Reynolds High School a student snuck a gun into their school to murder a fellow student in the gym. Schools need a way to survey what their students bring to school, and the most effective way of doing this is implementing metal detectors at all student entrances to the school. They would ensure that no guns are being brought into schools, full on eliminating the chance of a shooting happening inside of the school. Since there would be no life-threatening danger inside schools, students would again be able to view school as a warm pillow after a long day outside. This feeling is surprisingly rare because most schools will vote against buying technology that will protect their students. The main argument for this is that metal detectors are an expensive option that only provide short term solutions. However, the instant security gained by schools that install metal detectors triumphs that of schools that decide against installing them. Also, the common cost for a metal detector is only five thousand dollars, and have shown to only need minimal repairs, proving to be affordable. Therefore, schools should install metal detectors to full on eliminate the possibility of gun violence inside schools, providing students with a safe place from any form of violence outside of school.

How safe can a school truly be if it has students with unlocked guns at home and does not confirm that they are being brought into the school? Only fourteen states have laws placing criminal responsibility of a gun to its adult owner, and in these states they are not strictly enforced. As a resolution, congress should pass a bill that will hold gun owners accountable for actions committed by minors that had access to their firearms. Without threatening the rights given by the Second Amendment, this bill would call for gun owners to properly lock up their guns and minimize other people’s access to them. Even though this law would only decrease and not completely wipeout the availability of guns at home to students, it will slightly rid me and other worried siblings of our fear that a student would be able to bring a gun to school and harm one of our younger siblings. Decreasing the availability of guns to minors is like carving out the core of school shooting, therefore it is mandatory that congress acts upon it.

Although metal detectors are expensive and evacuation drills take away from time in class, the accessibility of guns to minors is very high; therefore, a law needs to be passed heavily increasing the responsibility of gun holders over their weapons while schools buy metal detectors and prepare their students to escape a threat in the school. It is better to be over precautious than to be unprepared, especially when we are talking about innocent students’ lives. No student anywhere across the country should have to lose focus in class because they are afraid that one of their two thousand schoolmates might come through their door with a gun. Congressman and schools need to implement changes minimizing dangers at school so that students can put their focus into education, the only reason they go to school in the first place.