Argumentative Essay On School Shootings

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On April 16, 2007, the deadliest school shooting in the history of the United States occurred. Seung-Hui Cho, a twenty-three year old senior at Virginia Tech, began a killing spree and his reign of terror at the West Ambler Johnston Hall and ended it, as well as his life, at Norris Hall. Seung-Hui sealed the fates of the unknowing occupants of Norris Hall as he chained the doors shut from the inside. He ruthlessly claimed the lives of many as “he moved room-by-room, methodically, silently, dispassionately shooting unarmed students and staff,” described Louisiana Law Review (Stearns par. 5, 12). Spurred by the recent and increasing occurrence of school shootings, active shooter training programs have surfaced, providing students with strategies…show more content…
puts an emphasis that individuals have the responsibility and ability to decide on how to deal with the active shooter situation. On the contrary, CMS lockdown procedures have staff strictly abide to the procedures, not allowing for a possible partial evacuation if the armed intruder was in a distant part of the building. In the 2007 Virginia Tech incident, Seung-Hui went from room to room, ending the lives of many instantly. If a shooter followed this same strategy at a CMS school, the number of casualties would be horrific because students and staff would be clustered, hiding, and huddling in a corner. In the article: “Targeting Schools: The Mass”, John Weldon, a teacher at Centinela Valley Union High School, states the faults of the weak standard school procedures in response to an active shooter…show more content…
Evacuating when it is possible, even partial evacuations, is essential to one’s survival; it is better than imprisoning students in a jail of imminent death. If students were allowed to evacuate, even by means of being lowered from the window, they “would have felt greater protection in getting out to safety as quickly as possible” and it “would have been far safer than cowering under desks and waiting for a hail of bullets to end [their] lives” (Weldon par. 24, 34). In the Virginia Tech incident, the room-to-room survival rates were dependent on what the students and staff did. Students who survived should attribute their survival to their professors; they told them to jump out the window and to barricade the door (“To Survive A Shooting” par. 11, 12). In Norris Hall, a classroom had twelve dead, and another room had eight dead and three injured. Students who attempted to play dead, hide, or proceed with the standard lockdown procedure were killed by Seung-Hui Cho. In contrast, the classroom that evacuated or barricaded the doors, had zero casualties (“To Survive A Shooting” par. 11, 12). Besides saving lives, the experience gained from A.L.I.C.E. can be applied to future life-threatening situations. ADD MORE INFO FOR THIS

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