Public safety and firearms

Staff Editorial

Sadly, another shooting tragedy happened at a community college earlier this month in Oregon.

Mass shootings have been happening more in recent past than ever before. Each crisis causes us to consider our safety in places that we’d otherwise be perfectly safe in, as well as consider how we will react if this happened to us.

There is college class time being dedicated to discussing what we’d do in a shooting crisis. We’re talking about what we students will throw at an intruder, where we’ll hide, where we’ll run, and how only some of us will survive.

We’re being forced to consider arming staff at schools and possibly even buying bulletproof backpacks. Whereas these things might have seemed radical and unnecessary in past times, they now seem like valuable options.

Because guns are always going to be around, we must find a way to better respond to this form of crisis. There’s a saying that’s relevant, which goes: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Arming public safety officers at college campus might be an adequate response to this ongoing problem. Having quicker access to the campus than a police department, it’s logical to better our chances of eliminating the intruder before they can reach multiple classes.

Public safety officers can go through special training to learn how to handle their weapons, specifically on a college campus and around college students. The training can focus on the best ways to handle a shooting situation.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures. According to a USA TODAY analysis of gun-related slayings, more than 900 people have been killed in mass shootings in the last seven years. It’s clear we need to try something new in response to these mass shootings.

It would definitely be nice if schools and college campuses could be gun-free, but that obviously isn’t the case. As long as there are mass shootings happening at schools, there’s going to be a response with guns to take out the shooter.

Arming public safety with firearms would only expedite the necessary act of eliminating the shooter, rather than waiting for the police to do it.