Pros:

In response to the Parkland massacre in 2018, Manatee County’s charter school, Manatee’s School of the Arts, employed two combat veterans to act as guards at the school. This school holds up to 2,100 middle and high school age students. With nearly 300 mass shooting reported in 2019, the question arises: is this the right means of protection?

While some may argue that the answer to keeping students safe is not employing armed guards, I would disagree. If done correctly, a program that employed combat veterans would solve two major problems our society is facing: school shootings and unemployed combat veterans. 

In the last year the number of mass shootings has grown to astonishing numbers, with there being more shootings in the year 2019 than the number of days into the year. At the same time the unemployment rate of combat veterans is still at 3.4 percent. Though this is a record low, it can still be reduced.

Combat veterans are the ideal candidates for serving as guards. In most cases, as was the case with one of the guards at Manatee, these individuals have been in the armed forces for over a decade. Because of the prior training they received in the military, whatever school district or university that hires a combat veteran does not have to allocate large amounts of money for the guard to have basic combat training. 

Instead, the school district or university would only have to allocate money to the specialized training the individual would need for their job at the institution. This would be a cost saver in the long-term for the school district or university.

Another case for using combat veterans as guards is the advantage that it would give the school. Manatee does not only supply the veterans with a Glock 9 Millimeter, but also arm them with a semiautomatic Kel-tec RDB bullpup rifle with a 17-inch barrel. 

Manatee’s reasoning for this is quite simple. “If an armed intruder were to enter the campus, we’re not looking for a fair fight. We’re looking at an overwhelming advantage,” said Dr. Bill Jones, principal of Manatee’s school of the Arts. 

Combat veterans have been trained to disarm, protect and kill, and in most cases, these men and women have over a decade of experience to hone these skills. If an armed shooter came onto school grounds, they would not last long.

In addition to benefitting the schools, employing combat veterans as armed guards helps eliminate unemployment among veterans. There are currently around 24,000 public schools and around 11,000 private schools in America with roughly 5.7 million combat veterans out of work. 

There is obviously no way for school districts and universities to hire every veteran out there, but if they hired at least two armed guards on average, there would be 70,000 veterans employed. 

To ensure the combat veteran is in a good mental state to protect the school, a series of interviews, psychological evaluations and background checks should be performed. This could be done in a similar manner to our own Grand Junction Police that patrol Colorado Mesa University. 

The combat veterans would be required to go through a lengthy five to seven interview process, pass several personality tests and pass an in-depth background check that delves into their character. After passing each step of the process, then the candidate would be able to start training – if chosen – for their specified role.

Coming from a military family, this idea is a great one. I have cousins that have retired from the armed forces and have had no luck finding a suitable job when entering back into the workforce. This type of program could help minimize this unfortunate reality that many of our veterans face, as well as help deter future school shootings.   

Cons:

In the winter of 2019, Manatee School for the Arts, a secondary school in Palmetto, Florida, hired two armed veterans to defend the school in case of a massacre at said school. Though it is a private school, and the school runners at Manatee have every right to do so, hiring armed guards for a school is useless.

Over the past few decades, the number of school shootings has exploded significantly. Some people blame video games, some people blame social media and others lay the blame in the clouded mind of the shooters themselves. But maybe we should help a potential shooter before they start their rampage.

The motive behind most shootings might stem from easier access to firearms. Some say we should take the same approach we have with cars: registering guns, requiring insurance for the injuries the user or firearm might cause and testing and licensing firearms users. In countries around the world, and in some states, firearms licensing is commonplace.

With an increased focus on security in American schools nowadays in response to said mass shootings, it begs the question: Are our students really safe? Students have reported that the emphasis on security at their schools has made the schools seem like prisons, or even war zones.

With increased security in schools comes an increased school security budget. Already, schoolteachers have to buy their own supplies, but their pay could get docked, making it harder for them to have supplies in the first place.

Just picture this: you’re a high school student, walking down on your first day of class, and at the entrance of the school, there are metal detectors, and security agents at the door, ready to pat you down. You’re probably thinking, wait… this isn’t the airport. No, it’s just school. You get to the door and turns out that your bag isn’t clear. 

Some report that heightened security at schools could lead to fear and paranoia in students. If a school feels like a battlefield, it won’t feel like a place of learning. If asked if I would rather live in a world where kids can go to school and concentrate on learning and socializing, or a world where kids’ main concern is being shot up in their school, I’d choose the former. Though school shootings are rare, the idea that just about any school could get shot up is quite common.

According to some sources, four schools where shootings occurred in 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Marshall County High School, Santa Fe High School and Great Mills High School, hired armed guards who failed to stop the shooters. This all goes to show that there are still shooters in areas where there are forces ready to shoot if necessary.