No one in his wildest dreams forty years ago would have imagined that a school would have an armed policeman on its faculty. However, it is true today. Nearly half of public schools nationwide have a full-time police on its campus whose chief job is to enforce discipline. In many cases, without the officer present, it would be impossible to maintain an environment conducive to learning. Why? Schools are infested with drugs, alcohol, gangs, bullies, vandals and poorly disciplined students that contribute to all manners of negatives behaviors which interrupt learning constantly.
Today, I heard something that made me sick to my stomach and feel that I must speak out. The executive vice president of NRA stated on national TV, and I quote: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with gun is a good guy with a gun”. He was literally suggesting that to stop the violence on our school campus we must result to violence. How pathetic is that idea! Has he not heard that one act of violence can not cure another? The best way to stop the out breaks of violence in our schools is to treat the causes. What are those causes, you might ask? To repeat, mental illnesses, drugs, alcohol, bullying, poor parenting, gangs, and yes poverty: these are a few of the culprits that are at the base of today’s violence. I strongly propose that they cannot be illuminated by fighting their symptom – violence – with gun. I also propose that by no means should we equip teachers with guns to educate our children. How repulsive is that thought!
The only way to treat the cause of violence in an educational environment is to utilize researched based theories that have a track record of success. That’s what we do in education. What am I talking about? We should be careful to provide proper counseling and awareness programs for the problems of gangs, bullying, and poor parenting, to provide counseling, facilities, and medications the mentally ill, to provide jobs and job counseling for the poor – to name a few. NRA SHOULD BE FORCED TO INVEST IN FINANCING SOME OF THESE NECESSARY PROGRAMS just as “Big Tobacco” was forced to finance programs for the problem of smoking and its effect cancer.
Glodav Speaks 