By Erica Remboske
Correspondent
In 2024 alone, there have been 45 school shootings in the United States — 45 too many. This data was updated on Sept. 9 and the year is not over yet. According to CNN, there were a total of 82 school shootings in the U.S. in 2023.
According to USA Today's statistics, “488 people were either killed or injured in a school shooting in the last six years.” This does not include college campuses, where there have been 13 mass shootings since 1966. At least 102 people were killed during these acts of violence.
The most recent school mass shooting occurred on Sept. 4, at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. A 14-year-old boy, Colt Gray, carried his gun into the school and opened fire. Although, according to CNN, Gray's mother called the school to inform them about the threat, the school may not have reacted quick enough. The shooting could have been prevented with the details that the mother provided.
However, Gray would not have been able to enter the school with a weapon if he had passed through a metal detector. Instead, four innocent lives, two being students, were taken that day, and nine others were injured. A quick scan under a metal detector would have prevented this tragedy.
Throughout all of the recent events regarding school shootings and gun violence, it is evident that the country needs to protect our children. There should not be any type of violence like this in the United States.
A good starting point where the United States can effectively protect its citizens from gun violence aside from enacting comprehensive legislation is to implement metal detectors, even in private schools. There are obviously more efficient and accurate ways to make schools safer, like enhanced security in every corner of the school, but the starting point would be metal detectors.
Metal detectors may slow students down as they enter the school, but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Students would have to remove all metal, including wire-bound notebooks, from their bookbags and walk through the security device.
A local public school district to the College, Ewing Public Schools, was finally able to implement metal detectors in their schools. Before the student reaches the entrance, they are to remove all metal from their book bags. Once the student reaches the school entrance, they must walk through the detector.
However, an issue with metal detectors is that other items, such as water bottles and jewelry, can go off and create a false positive for metal/weapons. Also, students will experience delays getting into the school until the faculty and staff become proficient with using the system.
It is also important to keep in mind that metal detectors do not reduce the entire threat of school shootings, but they do help with tracking and limiting what comes into the schools.
Gun violence needs to end everywhere, but predominantly, in our schools. While it could potentially raise taxes, protection from crime is crucial. Our children will grow up with even more fear than what they have now if we do not start to take action right away. There have been far too many deaths and injuries in the past 58 years, which is progressively getting worse each year. Immediate action needs to happen to fix this problem now.
