I Want A Gun In My Classroom By Anthony

The Response to Gun Control On February 14, 2018, a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School walked into the school and opened fire on his classmates. In total, seventeen people were killed, and the shooter walked away. After this event, a new discussion arose: gun control. Anthony Swofford was involved in the military and was trained with many weapons. He says, “I went through hundreds of hours of firearms training” (Swofford). He knows how weapons work and he also believes that weapons do not belong in the classroom. He goes on to claim that arming teachers is not the way to solve the problem because “assailants in such cases aren’t typically worried about losing their lives in the process” (Swofford). Anthony Swofford’s article,

I Don’t Want a Gun in My Classroom” offers many claims that can convince the reader that what Anthony is saying is true and/or realistic. These claims range from reasoning to the tone that Anthony employs throughout the article. Anthony has stated in this article, with a strong opinion, that weapons should not be allowed in learning zones and that citizens should not have these types of guns without any proper training. As Anthony expresses his concerns and opinions, he also brings up another point. What if this horrific event were to happen in his very classroom? What would be he is first action? Would he rather have a gun to hold back the attacker or would he rather try to find a place for him and his students to escape the building from? These thoughts that he has are much different then simply just pulling out a gun to fire at the assailant. Many things could go wrong with this solution, ranging from accidentally firing or killing a student to not being able to pull out the firearm fast enough, resulting in the attacker receiving another weapon. Instead, he was thinking of ways to escape, which would surely be better than risking the lives of twenty or more students. “Even after class began, I found myself fantasizing about inventing a bulletproof Kevlar curtain that I could have at the ready to affix to the door frame if the need arose” (Swofford). This quote really describes the type of person Anthony is because, although he was in the military for some time, he tried to find the nonviolent way out of the situation, even when faced with someone who could kill him in the blink of an eye. The take-home message of this article is that, although guns are great at protecting, they should not be used in every situation. Schools of any type should enforce more safety measures that do not include untrained teachers having to have to fire and kill attackers, sometimes former students of their own. We, as a society, should