Collegian Online Edition

Children need more protection

A recent trend in the activities of children at school makes us all very uneasy.

Lately, children have decided to bring weapons to school, thinking that it will make them more popular or more respected. In reality, their actions make them a bigger threat to others and themselves.

Have these children learned nothing from the various school shootings, such as the massacre at Columbine High School?

Granted youth in middle school and high school should have a greater awareness of what has happened when guns are brought into a school building.

However, not all of those caught with weapons are teenagers or even almost-teens.

The media have reported several instances of children as young as kindergartners who have brought guns for show and tell. Or perhaps they mistook the real weapon for a toy and wanted to play cops and robbers with their friends at recess.

A few, unfortunately, knew what the gun was. They were angry and wanted to scare the bully who was pushing them around.

Where do they get these guns? Most come from home. The gun mom or dad purchased to keep the family safe was left in an unlocked box or in a dresser drawer or maybe even lying out in plain sight.

If parents were more responsible, some of these children would not have access to weapons. But many parents are too busy with other duties to teach their child about safety; they rely on the school system to do it for them.

School administrators can help in several ways: install metal detectors at every entrance with a responsible school official or law enforcement officer to monitor activity; initiate random metal detection hand-scanning systems where law enforcement officers can check students; check all backpacks of children entering the institution and have locker checks regularly.

If schools would initiate these procedures, the problem would not be as severe as it has become.

Better yet, if parents would be responsible when it comes to their weapons and their children’s safety, we would not have this problem at all.

It is a shame that our society has gone down this road because a handful of people cannot be responsible and keep weapons out of their child’s reach.

Even though schools have programs such as D.A.R.E., which teaches drug and weapon awareness and prevention, the burden cannot and should not be placed solely on the police officer teaching the program.

The government has done everything it can to make sure known criminals cannot legally obtain weapons, but that still leaves the black market as a source for weapons.

The government needs to crack down on these individuals to ensure the overall safety of everyone.

The world will never be completely safe, but maybe with some precautions, the world might be a safer place for our children. However, it will take everyone working together, and the responsibility begins at home.