COLUMN: Guns don’t belong in school
It only takes one bad experience, just a single moment that makes you nervous or scared, to sway your opinion on guns, one way or the other.
For some, that moment turns people into activists and they start ranting and raving about gun control, saying, “Guns destroy lives,” “Guns destroy families,” “Guns kill.” For others, weapons become their sanctuary. Their underclothing become arsenals and they are suddenly more than prepared to take on any and all enemies than the S.W.A.T. team. They say, “People kill people, not guns.”
It all happens in a moment.
My moment happened when I was 11 years old on a school bus in eastern Idaho. I was in 6th grade, on my way home from middle school.
It was late fall, the time of year in Idaho that can turn bitter cold at any moment, and force everyone to pull out their overly puffy winter coats, just so they can make it from the front door to the car. In middle school, fall meant a parade of pink or Nike symbol jackets hanging in every locker. But for the high schoolers I road the bus with, fall was an excuse to go ghetto, with sagging pants, backward caps, jumbo jackets and concealed weapons.
You get used to knives after awhile. You never like it, but you learn to lower your head and close your eyes when switch blades change pockets or hands. Then you cross the street and walk on the other side of the road if possible, just to be safe.
But there seems no safe distance with guns.
My gun was at the back of the bus, a silver one with a black handle, sitting only inches away from my 10-year-old little brother. It was being polished and stroked by a boy, no more than 17, who was on his last straw in regular high school. He was dressed in his regular attire, a shirt with some kind of drug or beer logo, flipped inside out to comply with school dress code, a pair of black jeans hanging so low they flapped in rhythm with the east winds, and a puffed up hooded coat with jumbo inside pockets. His friends called him “G.”
G had been in trouble since he arrived in the public school system, trouble for sluffing, trouble for fighting, trouble for drugs. He’d just recently returned from a suspension, and he spoke proudly of it. G always got off the stop right before mine.
I was sitting in the front, alone in my seat next to the window. I always sat there. The kids liked to pick on me, but they wouldn’t do it around our bus driver. She was a hard core grandma from the east somewhere. Her curled grey hair fell at the rim of her glasses and the edge of a cold, piercing glare that said calmly, “There will be no trouble on my bus.” Granny was first bus driver that had stayed for more than just a few weeks.
My brother ran up from the back of the bus that day, plopped excitedly into my seat, and started chattering happily about this cool thing G had. I listened with half an ear, until a single word caught my full attention. Bullets. Did he say bullets? The bus stopped. G and his friends walked past and I stared with golf ball sized concern in my eyes as they stepped off the bus.
Our stop was next. My brother and I sprinted down Fleetwood Drive, and through the garage door of our house. No sooner had my mother greeted us than my little brother started to tell his story a second time, and I watched as my mother’s eyes grew to the same golf ball size mine had. But Mom remained composed, explaining the facts of guns to my little brother.
“Aaron, it’s bad to have guns at school. Guns are dangerous.” He shook he head wildly.
“This one wasn’t dangerous, Mom. It wasn’t even loaded.”
“How do you know it wasn’t loaded?”
My brother’s voice because confident, with an almost annoyed tone. “Because Mom. The bullets were in his hand.” My mother was composed no longer. She ordered us downstairs and flew into a stream of phone calls-first, to my dad then to the school and the district office. I have never seen my mother so upset.
I don’t recall seeing G on the bus too many more times. I’d heard that he was kicked out of school and sent to the alternative high school in the city. My dad was the principle of that school and I knew he would take care of it. Guns would never be brought to my dad’s school. I was sure. At least until Christmas time just a few months later. My dad wanted a bulletproof vest for Christmas.
It took just a moment for my opinion on guns to change forever. That moment when I finally understood why the world was so afraid of guns. This was three years before Columbine. Seven years before the shooting at Montreal. Nobody died in my moment. The gun wasn’t even fired. But in that moment I decided that guns were not something I wanted at school, ever-high school or otherwise.
There has been debate over whether or not the University of Utah can legally forbid guns on their campus. For the moment, it was decided they could not. It’s a decision I feel was probably fair. Constitutionally, the right to bear arms is protected, providing you follow the rules, such as obtaining the proper permits and licensing, and the Constitution is something I don’t like to take away from without good cause.
However, just because you can take a gun to school, doesn’t mean you should.
It’s your right though, and if you want to invoke it, that’s fine. Get your permit. Carry your concealed weapon. Just don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know that the kid sitting next to me in chemistry has a gun, and I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not he knows how to use it safely.
Mikaylie Kartchner is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to mikayliek@cc.usu.edu