With the recent increase in mass school shootings, state legislators around the country have contemplated the idea of arming public school officials, yet Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring completely disagrees.
The unfortunate Valentine’s Day mass shooting that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL., collectively killing 17 students and staff members, has led to a national outcry of whether more thorough federal background checks, resulting in stricter gun control laws, are enough at this point.
A CNN report conducted from Feb. 20 to Feb. 23 established that “70 percent of Americans said they wanted stricter gun laws”.
To be more thorough and in depth, Vox.com drew statistics from previous mass shootings to generate a compare and contrast study of when many Americans were in support of stricter gun control laws.
The study states, “Compared to just 52 percent after the Las Vegas mass shooting in October. 64 percent said that the government and society could take actions to prevent mass shootings, 46 percent after the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, 35 percent after the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, and 46 percent after the Newtown shooting.”
These ongoing issues not only gained momentum after the Parkland, FL. shooting, but also a new set of generational gun control advocates.
As recently as March 14, an array of young adults participated in the National School Walkout in efforts to protest the relevancy of school shootings. Yet most notably, March 24, a student-led march in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. March for Our Lives urged people in Congress and others to consider tightening gun control laws—or an alternative that would lessen the aftermath of distraught and torn families from being victimized of gun violence.
Meanwhile this concept of staging walkouts and protests supports a cause that needs to be widely spoken about, instead of being overshadowed by rhetoric that goes against their main agenda.
“In America, we trust the people to be wise and good…that is why in America, we’ve always trusted the people to keep and bear arms,” said President Trump at a 2018 National Rifle Association (NRA) event.
Prior to being elected, Trump endorsed gun rights throughout his presidential campaign, though it suddenly doesn’t seem that way.
"They're great people. And by the way, they love our country. They love our country. The NRA has been a great supporter. They love our country," said Trump in a CNN interview.
Yet, in order to reduce gun violence and prevent mass school shootings, Trump has collaborated with the pro-gun organization to implement a solution to its continuous problem: arm teachers and staff.
Despite efforts to combat this epidemic, it has caused a media frenzy and mass disapproval among legislators, especially from Virginia Attorney General, Mark Herring.
Speaking to the Department of Criminal Justice Services, Herring said “Our kids deserve a safe, secure learning environment when they come to school, and adding guns and armed, unqualified personnel to our classrooms is incompatible with that goal, the introduction of unqualified personnel with guns raises the likelihood of a tragic accident, or potentially catastrophic confusion during an emergency”.
Furthermore, this statement made an impression on the Lee County School Board. As of last month, they initially planned to allow teachers the legal right to bear arms on school grounds.
However, according to the Washington Post, “Superintendent Brian Austin said the school system is consulting with its attorneys before pursuing further action”.
Over the course of these past months, these mass school shootings have been frequent and unfortunate, but not unexpectedly, desensitizing. As school board officials and Congress differ, the unfortunate reality is that these events are likely to repeat themselves if proper action isn’t taken.
