On October 29th, 2018 yet another school shooting took place, this time at a North Carolina High School. A student was fatally wounded by another student, Jatwan Craig Cuffie, at David W. Butler High School in Matthews, NC. It pains me to even use the words “yet another” regarding such a tragic event, but it is a perfectly fitting way of describing the unbelievable amount of shootings that have devastated U.S. schools in recent months. As of October 4th, 2018, a total of 65 shootings have taken place on school campuses so far in 2018. To put that into perspective, around 60 school shootings took place between 2000 and 2009. This means that we literally had more shootings this very year than across a time span of nearly a decade.

       Some of you reading this right now probably haven’t even heard about this news until now.  And that, perhaps, is the most tragic part of the state we are in as a society. We have become so desensitized to this kind of violence that absolutely devastating events like this aren’t even making headlines. The truth of the matter is that we have an epidemic on our hands- an epidemic of violence. And while it is important that we as a community show our sympathy and condolences toward those affected by this violence, no amount of “thoughts and prayers” is going to put an end to this. We have to start making conscious efforts to prevent the likes of this from ever happening again. We have to not accept this kind of tragedy as a “normal” part of society. We need to actively protect our schools (and for that matter, all other public institutions) against these kinds of horrendous attacks. But how do we do this? How do we ensure that no other school ever falls victim to any kind of violent incident ever again? To that, I say… I don’t know. In fact, I don’t think anyone really knows. If they did, then school shootings would surely be isolated incidents, and not the widespread and, quite frankly, common occurrences that they are. But I do think that, if we are to be willing to take a stand against school violence, that we also have to be willing to, in a sense, fight fire with fire. Or, more specifically, fight firearms with firearms. Now, just a disclaimer- what I’m about to say is not intended to imply that I support any kind of extreme militarization of the school system. I don’t want schools surrounded by barbed-wire fences, or teachers patrolling the hallways with machine guns and body armor. All I want is schools to start stepping up their security with the implementation of firearms into their protection systems. At the very least, our security guards should be armed. I understand the concern over the ways in which students having armed teachers could affect them, but truthfully, that’s a risk I’d be willing to take. We’ve seen a recent increase in the number of school shootings here in the U.S. despite many states tightening restrictions on gun ownership, so frankly I feel that an attempt to reduce gun use even further will not have much of an effect on the amount of gun violence committed. I know many of you likely don’t agree with this point of view, and I don’t want this article to be a gun rights debate as much as I want it to encourage people to realize just how much of a problem shootings have become, but the truth is that something needs to be done. And fast. Trends have proven that the number of school shootings has risen substantially in recent years, so if immediate action isn’t taken to prevent and protect against these kinds of heinous acts, that number will likely continue to grow in years to come.