When Grant High School’s classroom phones blared the lockdown signal on Oct. 6, the responses varied. Some teachers and students followed protocol – they turned off the lights, locked the doors and covered the windows.
But in the auditorium, the band kept playing, its members unaware of the lockdown. In other classrooms, students continued to talk and walk freely as police searched nearby for two suspects who were reportedly carrying semi-automatic rifles near Grant Park.
Fortunately, the two men turned out not to be threats. But the mismanagement of this lockdown still brings the issue of gun safety close to home. And with the recent shootings in Roseburg that left nine dead and nine injured at Umpqua Community College, the controversy around weapons has been brought increasingly into focus at Grant.
Last October, Grant Magazine published an investigation into the mishaps and lack of safety precautions at the high school during lockdowns. After the last debacle, it’s a fair question to ask of school officials: Are things any better? And it’s also fair to ask, given the Roseburg shooting, can we be sure we’re safe at our school?
These mass shootings don’t happen anywhere else this often. Other countries like England have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world, leading to about 15 deaths a year from mass shootings. China, a country three times our size, has an average of 26 and Australia hasn’t had one since 1996. In America, we lose an average of 389 lives a year to mass shootings.
This problem feels far away most of the time. When we see it on our phones or on the news, it’s easy to block it all out. But in reality, this issue is everywhere in the United States. Though, the issue goes beyond just mass shootings, it all starts with our country’s need to have guns.
Ever since our founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment, proclaiming that with a well-regulated militia the “right to bear arms shall not be infringed,” guns have been ingrained in our society. Many take this amendment very seriously and for certain instances, it has proven to be respected in good nature.
But did those same founding fathers have semi-automatic weapons in mind when they wrote the Constitution? We don’t think so. We are the only country, aside from Guatemala, that has an amendment like this expressed so thoroughly in our Constitution.
Other countries can ban guns, but for us that would be unconstitutional. By no means is the solution to ban guns. But if we look at our country today with a skeptical eye, we cannot deny that problems with guns are prevalent in our nation. Now, we have the highest rate of private gun ownership in the world with 88 guns for every 100 people. And while we make up only 5 percent of the world’s population, we are home to 31 percent of all public mass shootings.
We can’t look at this gun violence as just something that happens. We can’t normalize it. With sensible gun legislation constantly backed up in Congress and partisan lines growing increasingly tense, it sometimes feels impossible that anything is going to change. But for those of us who are old enough to vote, it’s time to do our research and support candidates we trust with gun legislation.
In recent presidential elections, around 50 percent of 18- to 24-year-old people voted. This age group, compared to others, has the lowest participation rate in elections. However, many of this year’s 11th and 12th graders are able to vote in next year’s elections and paying attention to which candidates support some level of gun control will help bring about change.
The shooting in Roseburg shed light on the need for action surrounding gun laws. The recent lockdown showed how real the threat is for Grant students. Every time a mass shooting like this occurs, the debate on gun control continues once again and each time nothing is passed.
Let’s not wait for the next mistake to happen in a lockdown drill. Our administrators need to make sure these drills are done perfectly. Because until we see better gun control laws passed by politicians, these drills could mean the difference between life and death. ◊
