Pierce should have its entrances monitored by some form of security in order to make students feel more safe on campus.

In light of recent incidents in Los Angeles, it would make sense to monitor who comes in and out of our school to some degree. While this could get excessive, no measure is too extensive to ensure the safety of our faculty and students alike.

While there is no clear solution to protecting students from tragedies such as school shootings, which are becoming more and more common as time progresses, we have to continue the conversation that has already begun.

According to College Students perceptions of campus safety initiatives, “Applying a framework derived from literature on fear of crime and other salient concepts, multivariate modeling is used to explain variation in the observed level of student support.”

Studies are being done in order to put into action some kind of precautionary measures however no concrete plan has been put into place.

According to As seen on TV, an article written by Cullen T. O’Donnell, Lisa M. Carter, Leilani B. Goodmon, Destiny K. Zunic Caitlin Smith, and Alyssa Parisi, “In order to help students feel more comfortable in college, it is important for administrative staff, faculty, professors, and campus safety officers to be aware of student perceptions of safety—and the factors that can impact these perceptions.”

It is incredibly important for administration at schools to be aware that a change must be made. With no current plan in the works, we ask ourselves how rigorous of a process we must go through in order to monitor the people who come in and out of campus.

According to an article by George Padilla titled, Campus Safety in 4-year Public Colleges and Universities in the United States, “only 64 (75 percent) schools offered disaster response presentations to new students and staff, while 9 (11 percent) reported that their written emergency operations plans were not available to their communities, and that only 53 (62.4 percent) offered presentations regarding cyber-security and safeguarding online information.”

Given this information, not enough schools have offered a disaster response presentation to their students. While there is no current program set in place, having one in the works can eventually lead to an overall feeling of comfort for students and faculty alike. Pierce College is a well-knit community, and it is our job to make sure we are all as safe as possible.

DEVIN MALONE Reporter @roundupnews

While the protection of the students and faculty from threats should be a major concern for Pierce College, monitoring the entrances of the school is very much missing the forest for the trees.

As everyone who has stepped onto Pierce’s campus knows, the college is very vast and very open. There are multiple entrances and exits that circle the majority of the campus, and would require many people to patrol the area.

On paper, this is still plausible, as borders much larger have been maintained before, but unless people from the Sheriff's Office take this role, the guarding of entrances will be a moot point entirely.

According to a report by CBS, former marine Ian David Long was able to kill 13 people inside Borderline Bar & Grill, including a security guard manning the front door that night, as well as Police Sergeant Ron Helus.

The problem here is not that our entrances need guarding, as that is a drop in the pond of a much bigger issue at hand; rather, people should be rallying for more gun control, and the State of California should take better care to make sure that those with questionable mental health backgrounds should be barred from owning firearms.

California does have tighter gun laws than most other states, and according to California’s Department of Justice website, by January 1, 2019, “any person who, as of July 1, 2018, owns a firearm that does not bear a serial number assigned to it shall apply to the Department for a unique serial number or other mark of identification. (Penal Code 29180).” smatzaganian.roundupnews@gmail.com newsroom.roundupnews@gmail.com

While this is great at identifying those who will own firearms in the future (Long himself purchased his firearm legally, according to ABC News), it doesn’t do much to stop criminals from hoarding unlicensed guns at all.

Unless something is done about United States’ gun laws (on both a state and national level), and so long as we keep skirting around the issue by addressing smaller grievances such as guarding entrances to a campus that is almost completely open in a 360 degree radius, then people’s lives will continue to be at the mercy of mad men with guns and other weapons meant to kill or mame.

Long is just one of many people who have exploited our nation’s weak gun laws and has used them to tragically take the lives of countless victims across the United States.

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