Response to “Armed Teachers”

This article by my colleague Juliet makes the case that teachers should be allowed to have guns in their classrooms to protect themselves and their students from the dangers of school shooters. Although Juliet’s argument is somewhat misinformed, she brings attention to a large issue that needs to be fixed.

Juliet’s argument in full is that many school shootings could be averted if teachers had the right to keep firearms in their classrooms. Her suggestion is that all teachers would have to have a rigorous mental health screening before being allowed to have a weapon.  This brings a few questions to mind. Would you have to go through a mental health test to become a teacher? This would decrease the wish for people to attempt to get this already underpaid job. How would screening be done? How can you safely keep the weapons, in a way so that the children cannot access them, but it be readily accessible?

Based on the number of schools in the U.S., the average number of school days in a year, and the average number of shootings per year, there is a 1 in 1.8 million chance of a school shooting on any given day. With 3.6 million teachers in the U.S., unless we make arming teacher mandatory, that is low odds that a teacher with a firearm will be at the right place at the right time to avert the school shooting. The risk, however, outweighs the reward substantially. Children under age 12 die from gun accidents in the United States about once a week, on average, so it would not make sense to bring a gun into the classroom. To add to that, suicide is the leading cause of death among teens, and firearm suicide accounts for 51% of attempted suicide. Why put a suicide tool in a classroom?

There are two ways to improve the problem of school shootings. The first way is to make guns harder to get/keep hold of. Wills are public documents, so we can track who gets the firearms of the deceased. That way we can screen the inheritor to make sure that they can have a firearm. All licenced gun dealers are required keep sales records forever, and because of that, we can make sure that we know who has ever purchased a gun legally. We can tighten security for who can buy a new gun, and take the new security to inheritors of firearms. If we tighten security on who can have a gun, and instead of it being give the firearm dealer a reason why a person shouldn’t have a firearm, make it give them a reason why a person should. We would also probably have a database for all firearm dealers to check identities so that we can see how many firearms a person has.

The other solution is to give more counseling funds to schools, and funding to have therapists on call.  This would attempt to fix not only the problem of school shootings, but it would also decrease the number of suicides by young people. By giving young people access to therapy and counseling, we will give them ways to fix their problems without going off the deep end and attempting to kill people.

Although arming teachers might decrease the likelihood of school shootings, there are better and less dangerous ways to keep school shootings from happening. If we do our best, we can fix the problems without making more problems for ourselves.

Should Presidents be able to issue Executive Orders?

The Presidential “Executive Order” has been used since George Washington, but no mention of it has been found in the constitution. An Executive Order is a Presidential rule that stands in place until it is overturned or rescinded by a President. The idea came from Article II of the Constitution under an umbrella statement of Presidential power and so congress should make it legal, using precise words not an umbrella statement, but put some form of control on it. I believe that the privilege of the Executive Order has been abused by using it to skirt around laws.

Executive Orders were a way for Presidents to get things done quickly, so they didn’t have to go through Congress’ burocasies. Some Executive Orders have worked wonders, like the emancipation proclamation. Some were just bad, as proved by the Japanese-American Incarceration. Only one President, William Henry Harrison, did not issue any. It is uncommon for an Executive Order to be overturned by another branch of the government, although Presidents can revoke or alter orders made by any President.  Modern Presidents, though have been using them as laws they can make.

Many recent Presidents have made more Executive Orders than the way that it was originally used, as a tool for whenever the President needed something done quickly.  Although it is true that President Franklin D Roosevelt used over 3700, George Washington only used eight. Because George H. W. Bush signed 166, Bill Clinton signed 308, George W. Bush signed 291, Barack Obama signed 276, and thus far, Donald Trump has signed 88.  U.S. Presidents are overstepping their bounds, getting as close to making a law as they legally can as President. For example, an Executive Order can remove the budget of a congress-passed initiative.

Because the bounds have never been clearly defined, Presidents have nothing to stop them, from using Executive Orders to effectively make laws. The solution to this is for Congress to write in an amendment that Executive Orders are allowed, BUT, there needs to be a cap on the scope of what they can do. The cap would probably be an Executive Order can only stay an Executive Order for 100 days, unless it is validated by the Supreme Court as not in opposition to the intent of any laws.

The world looks up to the President of the United States like the police chief of the world, whether we like it or not. It does not look good to nations that don’t trust us to have a President signing Executive Orders every day. This is the reason we should limit the power of Executive Orders.