Five people were wounded during the shooting at Morgan State University on Oct. 4, 2023, at 9:30 p.m. The shooting occurred over a dispute between two groups and led to three people seen on film firing shots.
Currently in the United States, the top five issues the government is spending their money on are 23% social security, 15% on health, 13% on national defense, 13% on Medicare, and 13% on income security. In response to the mass shooting at Morgan State University, the government should focus more of its money on security for universities instead of national defense.
Whether it’s college or primary school, these kids are the future of the world. These kids and young adults are the next generation. These parents put trust in the schools to protect their children, who are trying to get an education to succeed in life. Protecting the people who will one day become our future president, lawyers, and nurses should be at the top of our priority list.
These schools and universities aren’t cheap to build either. The average cost to build a school in America is $200-$500 per square foot and in total can range from $20 million to $50 million. About 19 million students attend universities and every student goes through primary school. Not only does it make sense to have security to protect the thousands of people that attend these schools, if someone has 20 million to build a school they should be able to afford said security for these people.
School should be a safe zone students feel comfortable being in every day. These kids shouldn’t be in school worried about their safety and if they are at risk of death. This could lead to them not paying attention in class, being unable to concentrate, and not wanting to do their work. Sometimes, kids become so worried about dying they won’t even show up at all. All these possibilities are likely to happen and each stunts their learning heavily.
According to a PBS NewsHour national survey in May 2019, 40% of respondents felt that schools in their community were unsafe with regard to the risk of gun violence, up from 30% in 2018. In 2018, Gallup’s polling recorded that 44% of parents feared for their child’s safety while at school. When you think about the amount of school shootings this year it makes sense, with 58 school shootings as of Oct 3. This number is huge compared to other years like 2019, for example, where there were only 24 school shootings and 35 school shootings in 2021. That’s an increase of 34 in only two years.
Although student security should become a major priority in funding compared to our national defense, our national defense is still important. We still need defense in case we have to go to war, but that is highly unlikely to happen seeing how the last world war was 78 years ago in 1945. Not only do we have the money to fund security, but Joe Biden is also planning to send Israel a $105 billion national security package for their war. In the U.S. there are 3,982 colleges/universities, 87,498 elementary, 13,477 middle schools, and 23,900 high schools. Out of that $105 billion that Joe Biden plans to send to Israel, at least 5 million would have sufficed for funding the security of these schools to make them safe places.
School security is a critical issue in the United States and the government should focus more money on this issue. The first step to achieving this goal is for the government to hire more security guards for these schools. What happened at Morgan State shouldn’t only be seen as a moment of grievance but a sign to begin making changes as well.
Sources:
https://www.k12dive.com/news/will-school-shootings-in-2023-outpace-last-years-record-high/646765/
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-in-2019-how-many-and-where/2019/02
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2020/01
