To Secure or Not To Secure . . . That is The Question
By Ilyse August
“When the hysteria dies down, it will all be back to normal and people won’t be worrying as much.” This is the response from the front desk employee at our local high school here in Palm Beach County, FL when I question her about her preference to be a school with “high security access measures” or to be an employee in a school with no changes moving into 2013. In all actuality, her response was that she would NOT want any change to all the windows she has to obscure her views of the outside world. Needless to say, there are many who are not visibly shaken or concerned with our schools lackadaisical approach to maximizing campus security from the preschool levels through the College University level. Without a question of doubt, from the many incidents of mass shootings within our past year, one thing is quite evident to all: we do need plausible security measures instituted at not only schools for the protection of our children, teachers, administrators, and visitors for safety, but also we ultimately need protection for places of worship, workplaces, sporting arenas, malls, etc. Yet there exists among us much dissention as to how these so called security measures should be adopted and implemented. Pertaining to schools with the very recent massacre of 20 kids and 6 adults in the town of Newtown, Connecticut, with all the re-evaluations our school boards are currently scrutinizing and discussing, the omnipotent factor throughout the U.S. is that coming to some sort of agreement is going to take time.
One of the many voices for the National Rifle Association (NRA) vehemently stated after this carnage in Connecticut that it is incomprehensible for teachers to NOT be armed– urgently advocating for teachers and ALL school administration to be in the position of safety whereby each school employee possesses a gun and know how to shoot it. Now I understand there will be many strong differing opinions on this, however, in all reality, whether we deem putting weapons into the hands of our country’s teachers as a good idea or not, again, we do realize SOMETHING – some kind of idea must be introduced immediately. It is clear that we all want to feel better protected in the face of the next potential threat, which inevitably seems bound to occur with violent and deviant individuals who will always breathe among us and continue to scheme their plans to decimate others.
Invariably this leads us to delve into the discussion of whether or not it is prudent to authorize and allow guns to each of our teachers. This would mean we are possibly empowering the very individuals we worry about! After all, teachers and administration are people too, and seem to have disorders just like ‘regular’ people do. Case in point: this past year, right here in beautiful Wellington, FL, home of the “Equestrian Capital of the World” one of our very own good (?) Principals was arrested for online solicitation of young boys. He was in fact ‘our leader’ in both elementary and middle school over the years. I had three of my very own young boys under his “watch,” ages 13-16. In fact, only the day before his arrest, two out of my three boys said he was standing right next to them during school hours! I actually thought he was one of the better principals the local school had! Not that I’m one to judge another on their sexual orientation, but I do think this sexual deviance is potentially dangerous when it comes to our children, and with the descriptive detail of the things being done between this man and his potential suitors, I have to say I wouldn’t feel comfortable with this principal having access to a pistol.
I ask, “How can the NRA emphasize how important it is for our teachers to carry weapons to protect our children” when these very deviant behaviors exist within our school administration infrastructures? In South Florida alone, there have been a multitude of incidences with improper behaviors among our very own teachers and administrators which have made National news. From coaches to teachers, there are numerous stories on sexual misconduct with teens. This is just one subject area of teachers gone wrong. Another is teachers stealing from funds that are supposed to be for their own schools. According to the arrest affidavit of a Miami school Treasurer, 29-year-old Juanita Olivera of Homestead had forged signatures, created fictitious documents and transferred money between accounts to give the appearance of positive balances only a few years ago. The list goes on.
My point is – can we really entrust teachers with guns? ….I think NOT, Mr. NRA man! Empowering our teachers and administrators with pistols when we can’t even trust them all 100% in their respective positions, let alone ‘protect’ our kids is in my opinion an incomprehensible suggestion! With the NYC Empire State Building shooting where two NYPD officers, two of New York’s “finest,” had a target of an assailant, but the bullets shot ricocheted off flower pots and other objects present in this line of fire wounding 9 bystanders, how can we feel ‘good’ about our teachers having the opportunity to hit their intended targets? Here we have law enforcement officials who are in the trenches daily with pistol target practice missing their intended target, and the NRA is making a suggestion that teachers would be able to do better, WITH THEIR BYSTANDERS BEING OUR CHILDREN. Again, I think NOT Mr. NRA. We cannot justify the ability for our teachers to maintain the utmost of accuracy that is required around children and young adults. However, in the same breath, won’t perhaps some of these planned rampages decrease with the knowledge that teachers and administration officials at schools throughout our country are armed for safety and protection? Talk about a serious conundrum!
The second amendment does indeed allow for individuals to protect themselves with the power of a pistol, and I’m not necessarily against that right, but at the same time I am cognizant of the fact that the mass availability of assault weapon rifles is way too lenient and needs to be re-considered for tighter ownership laws. Background checks and security measures on just regular guns need more rigorous laws implemented – IMMEDIATELY. My own sister-in-law took her life with the use of her husband’s gun. We never learned if he was negligent in locking it up, but on this note, laws for locking guns up need to be improved upon; they need to be more stringently enforced, and if not adhered to strict penalties need to be followed through on. How many cases in the U. S are there where children get their hands on their parents’ guns and accidental deaths are the end results? Too many is ultimately the answer. Gun show banner advertisements throughout S. Florida need to stop – where crime is already out of control. Get a gun, rob somebody and run down the street to a local pawn shop to get money. The South Florida way- sunniest place with the shadiest people! It doesn’t help that Miami International Airport is ranked as one of the top entry points in the United States for the horrible crime of human trafficking. Why do these same people who are kidnapping our children and adults have such easy access to weapons to help in their pursuit of modern day slavery? The statistics on the numbers of high powered assault rifles currently on the market at any given time is astonishing. Access to these kinds of assault weapons that can create such decimating carnage in such a short span of time need to incur new laws, so as not to be readily available to anybody trying to obtain them. The NRA definitely tries to obfuscate these truths.
As a victim in a horrible jewelry robbery with my family, my boys at the time of the robbery ranged in age from four to age seven. The ‘event’ happened in Emerald Hills/Hollywood, FL, a beautiful neighborhood, in broad daylight on a Saturday (10-13-2003.) I can tell you that I want to climb up on a ladder high into the sky and personally damage each and every gun banner billboard I see advertising the latest gun show here in South Florida. The eight masked men who came running into the jewelry store had large axes (and they weren’t acting as tin men in a rendition of The Wizard of Oz as I first thought,) but also had sledge hammers and the one at the door did have a gun with a silencer on it. Guns once again in the hands of the wrong people. Perhaps if the background checks could be tighter, maybe these bad guys wouldn’t be burglarizing as often and with such ease. There was NO armed guard outside of this store, but if there had been, maybe this would have thwarted these bad guys. Maybe not, but I’m under the impression that if an armed guard with an attack dog had been employed for security purposes, my family and I would have never been the victims of a potential tragedy. Thank G-d all we went through (besides near heart attacks) was shattered glass, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the sheer need to shop online for any future jewelry needs!
In addition to being a victim of a jewelry robbery involving guns, I have also unfortunately through default, been a victim of our mental health system. In 2011 while driving in downtown West Palm Beach, FL traveling with my then 12-year-old son, from behind an electric box on a corner of a main street, a very tall man literally dove with all of his force onto the windshield of my car shattering the glass into a million pieces. My first reaction as my mind was racing was that it was a set up because the man had every intention to throw himself at my car. This lunatic had to be strung out on drugs I assumed. In addition to my having to foot the $300 dollar bill to fix the windshield, this man – after police officers spoke to him – simply waltzed away. Not a scratch on him, no sign of blood, no apology, no ticket, just walked away down the street in the opposite direction of the “accident.” The officers got extremely testy with ME when I complained they were not giving him any citation. There I was with a broken windshield, a son who was absolutely traumatized by this man diving onto my car, and officers saying the man was a documented mental health patient from the nearby hospital and had recently paid a visit to the hospital where he had been released. His diagnosis was schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – one or the other, possibly both. I was told by the officers that there is absolutely NOTHING they can do about mental patients running rampant throughout our communities inflicting harm not only upon themselves, but upon others as well.
It is all too clear to me from a direct involvement that our system for those who have mental disabilities needs to be overhauled. I do feel for all the mothers, fathers, and various family members of those mentally ill people out there who KNOW their relatives are sick, but have no power to help them stay safe, and keep others from harm’s way. I take note that one out of five kids in our country have some type of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and we all know from those parents (again, myself included,) that these parents have been fighting for years for assistance for their kids with all types of disorders ranging from Full on Autism to the myriad of Pervasive Development Disorders including, but not limited to: Oppositional Defiance Disorder, sensory issue disorders, anger management, ADHD/ADD, the list goes on and on. That brick walls are abundantly universal forces all over our country for these parents of children with these disorders, and adults as well who struggle with cognitive and neuro disabilities, mental illnesses, breakdowns, whatever you want to label it as, is it any wonder the schools, workplaces, houses of worship, etc. experience shootings and atrocities in general that continue to repeat themselves each time resulting in horrific outcomes? This is not to infer that Autism, as a whole, results in malicious crimes. I’m just pointing to the overall neglect of the mentally ill, and that this neglect helps facilitate a greater possibility for Sandy Hook type catastrophic events.
Surely we all realize as a society that measures need to quickly and deftly begin as we do re-evaluate our safety measures or lack thereof for our children who are students, for our members of families who may be teachers and/or administration of schools, for everybody in general REALLY! Perhaps we can contemplate helping our country’s veterans who come back from wars or various assignments around the world and find it impossible to obtain jobs. They are trained marksmen, our countries militia – they represent soldiers who protect our country, and so why not help them to help us? We would also be providing a landscape for additional jobs helping to reduce the unemployment rates nationally. For all those who do not wish their children attend schools with armed security guards, allow these folks the freedom of choice to attend some select schools with no armed security guards.
Safety drills should be incorporated into all school levels, and as a local Wellington Kindergarten teacher at Panther Run Elementary recently did, backhandedly she was able to orchestrate a safety drill with her entire class without them knowing it was actually a safety drill. All parents of her class did not tell their five-year-olds about the Sandy Hook elementary school tragedy in Connecticut, but the parents were all for this teacher’s idea to hold a ‘hide and seek’ plan to get them all into the class safe room, location not to be mentioned here. She told the class that her friend says the best hide and seek place is – ______ (blank, location not to be mentioned), but she didn’t think the kids could fit. So this Wellington teacher said, “Let’s all hide in this location, and I’ll take a picture and show it to my friend and prove her wrong because we made a bet and I say you can all fit.” So in this safe room all the kids went, and the teacher snapped a photograph to show her other teacher friend! These are the kinds of ideas from creative and compassionate people that we need to start listening to. Times have changed, and we need to beef up our security systems in all areas because, unfortunately, what happened in Newtown, Connecticut can very well happen again and again.
