Early action and alternate solutions save the day

“In 2003, 5,570 young people ages 10 to 24 were murdered—an average of 15 each day. Of these victims, 82% were killed with firearms,” according to the youth violence fact sheet from the Department of Health and Human Resources Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With the recent happenings surrounding the nation in coalition with murders of college students, this statistic is being proven true. Since 2003 there has been at least two prominent shootings on college campuses. The first occurred in April 16, 2007 when a gunman who was a student killed more than 30 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. According to NPR.org, “The campus shooting at Virginia Tech was the deadliest in U.S. history.”

The other shooting, which happened more recently, is called the Valentine’s Day shooting because it occurred February 14, 2008. A little over a month ago a man armed with a shotgun opened fire in a lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University. It took this shooting to open the eyes of the American people to the dangers of people obtaining firearms in any school setting, let alone an open college campus.

Beginning in 1966 when Charles Whitman pointed a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin's Tower and began shooting in a homicidal rampage for 96 minutes is when security on every campus should have been tightened and plans been made on how to prevent this from happening again. However, it would seem that as the years went by people allowed the violence to continue as more than 54 college students have been murdered in mass shootings on over 10 years with dozens more being injured.

This leads to the big question as to whether or not students should be allowed to carry guns for protection. Some students including Sarah Funk, a sophomore at Piedmont College, suggest that more people would be apt to die if students carry guns. “There are days when people can get frustrated or annoyed with a class or professor and feel like killing them,” Funk says, “If they were allowed to have guns there would be more opportunity for them to go through with it.”

Several students have suggested having “Code Red” drills like many of the high schools in the area. This would allow students on the Piedmont Campus to have an idea of what to expect if a real shooting were to occur. Some also say that the Security Guards should carry guns in case of an emergency.

This idea has actually been explored by the Piedmont Administration. “Security at Piedmont have not carried guns for at least 10 years because there has never been a threat of violence to the school or students,” say Dick Martin, head of security at Piedmont. It has been discussed that Piedmont have one armed police officer on campus and one security guard at all times.

However, not all students say that there should be no form of protection for each individual. Funk says, “I think that females if not all students should at least have pepper spray or something to use for protection.” This is in reference to the recent murders of three female college students from Georgia who were attending out of state schools.

Although two of these murders are said to be at random and did not occur right on campus soil the idea of self protection remains the same. Students could use the pepper spray as some kind of deterrent to allow themselves ample time to escape their attackers and possibly prevent another murder.

It is coming up with alternative solutions that will solve the problem at hand. A person cannot fight fire with fire. Therefore, the answer to preventing campus shootings nationwide is not to give everyone guns but to find some way to outsmart the attacker in a quick and orderly manner.