I was a bit flummoxed reading the punch list for safeguarding students against shootings presented in Wednesday’s letter to the editor by Phillip Kupelian. Going into extensive detail, he believes that “building security,” “obstacles” (with airlocks for all exterior points of ingress and egress, no less), “arming teachers” and altering desks “to be protective devices” are expedient solutions.
These items may indeed lessen the effects of a shooting situation, but at what cost? The writer exhorts us to “get it together,” as effecting these items would be “much quicker … than trying to pass more gun laws that don’t work … .”
I ask: Can these items possibly be implemented in both a timely manner and at a cost of less than billions of dollars? How could remodeling nearly 100,000 public schools in the U.S. be more effective and timely than legislatively addressing access by a minuscule part of the population to instruments of mass murder?
As is often the case, my wife provided me with some insight. She mentioned that places with all of the safeguards the writer, and others, desire already exist. They’re called prisons! Obstacles to keep people out, check; entrances locked to outsiders, check; armed supervision, check; add a few bars instead of windows, and we’re done here.
I’m the parent of a young teen, and nothing is further from my wish list for her than to experience prison. As of the fall of 2017, there were nearly 51 million school-aged children in the U.S. That we as a country would look to virtually imprison this cohort of our population, simply because reaching consensus on rules regarding assault weapons use and ownership is difficult, is unconscionable.
It speaks to our imbalanced societal scales that in this matter are clearly placing the “rights” of the very, very few above the rights of the very many.
Mike Del Tergo
Falmouth
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