March 27, 2023-– A 28-year-old shooter aims her gun and shoots a bullet through a door at a private Christian school. Soon after gaining entryway, she takes the lives of six people: three nine-year-old students and three staff members. 

Evelyn Dieckhaus, nine years old; William Kinney, nine years old; Hallie Scruggs, nine years old; Katherine Koonce, 60 years old; Cynthia Peak, 61 years old; Mike Hill, 61 years old. 

All shot and killed on an otherwise ordinary day.

The world we live in is becoming increasingly dangerous; anything, anywhere and anyone is free game.

As we take in tragedy after tragedy occurring on school grounds and note that no safety measures taken, nor amount of security provided has stagnated the intent of a person to infiltrate and kill, it is natural for us to feel that we should protect ourselves. 

Students are quick to urge educational administrations to allow self-defense weapons in schools and even quicker to take to Amazon, adding tasers, concealed knives and pepper spray to their carts– hanging them from their keys, stuffing them in their bookbags and holding onto them as a saving grace.

But is a faux sense of safety worth the peril of adding fuel to the fire?

Minors’ lack of responsibility does not translate well to an already exploited mechanism. We can all give credit to the notion that teenagers are more prone to impulsivity than any other group of people. Placing potentially fatal weapons in the hands of these young people is only a recipe for disaster.

Even then– even if the same people who pull fire alarms for a 5-minute break from class could be expected to responsibly carry knives and tasers on their persons– self-defense weapons are only as good as your ability to use them. 

It’s harder than you’d think to stab someone, let alone for the first time.

It’s harder than you’d think to aim a can of pepper spray under the influence of adrenaline.

It’s harder than you’d think to keep from tasing yourself rather than your intended target.

There is a major lack of education revolving around self-defense weapons and a major flaw in the notion that they can protect you in a situation of immediate and fatal danger.

What’s a taser going to do facing the barrel of an AR-15? Pepper spray? A knife disguised as lipstick?

Unless we’re going to hand all kids guns and trust them not to shoot each other, self-defense shouldn’t be the resolution raised against school shootings. So, rather than dwell on feigned solutions, it is important that we pursue proper courses of action. And, unfortunately, such action is out of our own hands.

The answer is not in self-defense; the answer is deep in the philosophy of our country. Rather than advocating for the further normalization of weapons in children’s hands, we should be advocating for guns and weapons to be taken off the streets. By allowing students to bring self-defense weapons to school, we’d be contributing to an already smoking powder keg waiting to go off.