Posted to IPR on Facebook. Dennis Spisak is the Green Party candidate for Governor of Ohio.
The Ohio House passed legislation that would allow some school employees to carry a concealed weapon. House Bill 8, which passed overwhelmingly out of the House Wednesday, says a school board could pick a school employee to carry a concealed weapon. It would also keep the name of the person carrying the weapon a secret.
As a parent, school principal, and former board of education member I am very troubled by this legislation. There is no evidence to support having civilians carry guns in schools and much that suggests such a move is more likely to lead to harm.
While mass shootings are extremely rare, violence impacts the lives of young people every day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that each day, an average of 13 people between the ages of 10 and 24 are victims of homicide in the U.S., making homicide the third leading cause of death among youth and young adults; it is the leading cause of death among African American youth. Yet very little of this violence occurs on school grounds. Children spend more than a third of their waking hours on campus, but less than 2% of youth homicides occur at school.
One of the reasons why there are so few homicides at school is because these places are largely successful at keeping guns off the premises. Adult supervision and, in very high-risk schools, metal detectors have proven to be effective deterrents. While there are no specific data regarding having armed adults in schools, an analysis of U.S. mortality data found that people with guns in the home are at a greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide there. There is no reason to think schools would be any different: the more guns there are, the more opportunities there are to use them.
Instead of bringing more guns on campus, let pass legislation that will fund more effective strategies that include improving access to mental health services, reducing access to lethal weapons and developing “early warning” systems that identify young people at risk of committing violent acts.
We need better mental health support as well as threat assessments so that people have somewhere to turn for help when they recognize someone is in trouble and requires help. We need to provide better links between people and mental health professionals.
But better mental health support is only one piece of the puzzle. To address the underlying causes of violence we need to help all students develop their conflict-resolution skills, emotional awareness and self-control; family-based programs designed to improve parenting and solve problems in nonviolent ways, and mentoring programs that pair a young person with an adult who can serve as a positive role model and help guide the young person’s behavior.
Schools are safer when they have a culture that includes supportive teacher-student relationships and clear norms and expectations that violence is not tolerated. Students need to feel that they belong at school and that others care for them. The students most at risk of committing violence are the ones who are most alienated from school and their community. Connecting them to school and services is essential. And to do this effectively, parents and families need to be included.
We need a governor who will be pro-active in disarming angry students before they reach the school door instead of turning our school campuses into the O.K. Corral. I am that governor.
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Steve M and Jed Ziggler make good points here.
This issue reminds me of the old cliche’; “that, which is not prohibited, is mandatory”,
We shouldn’t be surprised that neither politicians OR school boards (but then I repeat myself)
have a clue about individual choice. It is unnecessary (if not counterproductive) for an official
“gun toter” to be appointed. Simply remove the prohibition of adult possession of firearms on campus and the problem will solve itself.
I agree, I’m a big proponent of homeschooling & unschooling. My mom pulled me out of school & homeschooled me after I was bullied. I finally learned to be okay with myself, and could finally actually LEARN now that I was in a safe environment. If bullying & violence are the “social interaction” that’s supposedly so important, I say the kids can do without.
One way to make them safer is to get rid of them. Institutionalized schools designed to force kids to be in school are modeled after prisons and they don’t benefit the kids. They benefit the parents who have free child care, they benefit the teachers in that you give them jobs but as a means of educating children they are a disaster.
I ask, if a full load at college is 12 hours a week of lecture then why do we we require 30 hours of attendance for high school kids? Are the high school classes that much harder then the college classes? I doubt it. This is about keeping kids off the street and out of the labor market…. its not about educating them.