Jimmy
Robison
April
7, 2016
Mr.
Smith
Honors
English 11
Lanza’s Law
Mass school shootings have become
the most heinous trend in recent memory, provoking parents to fear for their
children’s lives and causing people across the country to lose faith in the
humanity of their fellow Americans. This atrocious pattern began with the Sandy
Hook Elementary massacre in Connecticut that left twenty children and six
adults dead. Since, there have been more than 175 school shootings nationwide, taking
an insurmountable emotional toll on the victims and their families.
I think that we can all agree that
our current system of protecting our youth during school is not working and the
urgency behind such change is undeniable: no parent should be forced to send
their child into an environment that they feel is dangerous. No parent should
ever feel obligated to send their child to school holding the slightest doubt
that the child will return safely home that evening. No parent should have to
bury a child before they reach high school. Yuppie liberals think the answer is
to strip the people of their guns. Not only is this a direct violation of the
second amendment, but also a potentially life threatening safety concern: by
disarming law-abiding citizens, you deprive them of their ability to defend
themselves against crazed, gun-wielding Muslims. We need to protect ourselves from
ruthless killer-terrorists, not concede to them by handing in our only means of
self-defense.
A sizable percentage of mass shootings
are now occurring in schools. This can be attributed to a couple of factors:
firstly, these unscrupulous savages want to incite the maximum amount of fear
possible, provoking the entire country to shiver at the horror of their act and
dread the thought of their children meeting a similar grim fate. The killers
bask in traumatizing the victim’s families and awing the nation with their utter
lack of morality when their names and faces appear on every major news network
worldwide.
But a factor more important than the
perpetrator’s desire to incite fear is the vulnerability of the school facility
and those inside. Anyone aiming to commit an act such as this is not only evil,
but also cowardly, knowing they will meet no resistance in a public school
setting. Once inside, there is absolutely no stopping their slaughter, as the
building’s population consists mostly of children who, on their own, are
completely hopeless against an adult wielding an assault rifle.
While no legislation will correct the
demented minds of these murderers, such legislation can tend to the vulnerability
of the public school system, and that’s the purpose that the statute I’m
proposing will undoubtedly serve. As adults, we have a moral obligation to
protect our youth and to equip them with the tools to protect themselves when
we cannot. With that in mind, I propose Lanza’s Law. This bill stipulates that
all students attending public, state-funded schooling grades kindergarten
through twelfth will be issued a .40 caliber Glock 27 pistol, ammunition, and corresponding
holster. These students will be required to bring their firearm to school every
day and carry it loaded at all times without exception. To ensure that the
school is sufficiently armed to dispose of any threat, all teachers and staff
will also carry a Stag Arms AR-15 Model 8 assault rifle with extended
magazines. A vast array of additional modifications will also be made available
free of charge to those who wish to be better prepared. As with the students,
the staff will also be required to carry their rifles at all times, and will be
issued a standard AR-15 shoulder sling to do so comfortably.
There is one obvious concern that
sticks out to mostly everyone upon reading my proposal: where will the funding
come from? I understand that it will be very expensive to outfit every student
and teacher in the country with a firearm, but I can proudly say that my
proposal can be sufficiently funded without any substantial tax hikes: there
are approximately 50 million students attending public school in the United
States. The retail price of a Glock 27 pistol is $549.99, but Glock has agreed
to give a 70% discount out of respect for our cause, therefore, reducing the
price to $165 per unit. The total price to provide every U.S. student with a pistol
amounts to $8.25 billion. As for our 3.1 million teachers, each of their rifles
retail at $999.99. Once again, the manufacturer has agreed to discount 55%, reducing
the unit price to $450, totaling $1.4 billion. These numbers may sound staggering,
which may lead you to believe this undertaking impossible, but in comparison to
the 2015 U.S. military and defense budget of $600 billion, this vital security
upgrade is very affordable. I can also assure you that my idea has gathered an
insurmountable amount of support, which will prove a significant help in making
Lanza’s Law possible from a budgetary standpoint: without any promotion
whatsoever, 84 organizations have already promised to make sizable donations
including the following: National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, Jews
for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, and so on. The sum of all these
contributions is upwards of $100 million, and with this project’s newfound recognition
alongside the opportunity to receive donations from individual supporters, who
knows how much we can rake in solely from donations. Clearly, Americans want to
protect their youth, and are willing to do what is necessary to make that
happen. It is your turn to return the favor!
My main objective here is obviously
the safeguard of our children, but even outside of these very obvious safety
benefits lies many other positive ramifications. Providing students firearms
not only provides means of self-defense, but also instills a sense of
responsibility crucial in childhood development. In addition, this legislation
will almost certainly have a positive impact on the recently publicized
bullying epidemic: when all the students have a gun, the imbalance of power no
longer exists within the student body. No more will the scrawny, quiet, physically
incapable bookworm fear the antagonizing class bullies. The potential
perpetrator will know better than to pick on the normally victimized nerd, as
by doing so, he risks being shot to death. A sense of respect for teachers and
figures of authority will also be established because no one wants to test a
disgruntled teacher with an automatic weapon strapped to their back.
I believe this proposal is the only
permanent solution to gun violence in schools. Too many times in the last two
years have we seen elaborate strategies to protect children from crazed killers
fail miserably when the real answer was as simple as it gets: let the kids
defend themselves. When this passes, no lowly coward will be well-endowed
enough to attempt to go on a killing rampage against a thousand potential
killers, and on the off chance they are, let them! Our kids will be locked,
cocked and ready to rock when danger comes knocking.
Who are we to deny our citizens basic Constitutional
rights purely on the basis of age? Lanza’s Law is the only surefire way to keep
our children safe from harm and put parents at ease. It’s common sense, really:
where there are more guns, there will inevitably be less shootings.
