A Letter to the Editor
On March 15, 2018 NPEIV Board member Jacquelyn White penned a letter to the editor of Star News Online addressing gun violence. You can find her letter in full below or read the original here.
We have options
EDITOR: Do the politicians who are considering arming teachers believe that school shootings are inevitable? Do they think there’s nothing to do but take a defensive stance? If so, they could not be more wrong.
I call attention to the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence’s Call for Action to Prevent Gun Violence, endorsed by over 1,400 education and violence-prevention experts in the United States and over 130 professional organizations. It calls for a three-pronged approach to promote safety for all, as well as interventions for those at risk for violence:
1. Schools: Implement programs to prevent bullying, harassment, and assault; staff schools with mental health professionals; reform school discipline policies to reduce exclusion; promote positive social, behavioral, emotional and academic success for students.
2. Those at-risk: Develop a national program to train and maintain school- and community‐based threat-assessment teams that include mental health and law enforcement partners; lift legal barriers to sharing information across agencies; coordinate school- and community-based mental health services for individuals with risk factors for violence.
3. Access to firearms: Ban assault-style weapons, high capacity ammunition clips, and modified semi-automatic firearms; conduct universal background checks to screen out violent offenders, persons who have been hospitalized for violence, and persons on no‐fly, terrorist watch lists; issue restraining orders and removal of weapons from those who have committed violence.
We can do all this if we have the will.
Jacquelyn White, Wilmington
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