The open forum on gun control on March 22 was an insightful event which allowed students to share their varied views on the topic. About 20 students and staff attended.
“It is a very hard thing to do, to change culture”, said Hunter Phelps, a senior at Oliver Ames. Although Hunter repeatedly said that he was pro-Second Amendment, he still believes that tighter restrictions need to be in place to protect schools. “I think we need universal background checks. I think that automatic weapons should be so incredibly difficult for an ordinary person to obtain.”
Organizers Hannah To and Andrew Abramson posed questions ranging from, “Do people need guns” to more serious and theoretical questions like, “Do guns kill people, do people kill people, or both?”
As the discussion became more in depth, people came up with ideas on how to make the school safer. Some thought that having steel doors in the school or putting in extra protection around school property would make the school a larger target. Others thought that having the same protection would mean having a more secure presence and safer environment.
“There have been 18 instances of guns being discharged on school grounds (around America) since January”, said To, a senior. “We keep our phones locked, why don’t we keep our guns locked?”
Senior Josh Melnick posed the question: “Should we limit the right to own guns?”
“If we were to allow teachers with concealed carry permits to have guns in school I think that the gun should have bio metric authentication, which would stop just anyone from firing the weapon,” he said.
This would mean that the trigger on the gun would not fire unless the person firing it had a thumbprint exactly identical to the owner of the gun, which would virtually eliminate the ability of a person to fire a gun owned by someone else.
The topic of gun control is seeping into all communities in the Commonwealth and throughout the nation as well. Although shootings still occur, the discussion that is continuing around gun control shows a country willing to compromise some of their beliefs on both sides of the argument in order to end the tragedies like those that happened in Parkland, Florida. The ability for the student body to express ideas openly shows that with all great movements and changes in culture, there must first be discussion.