The recent school shooting in the Denver area leaves a question in students minds at Smoky Hill. With all the recent threats towards Smoky Hill and schools in Colorado, should students feel safe in school?

The most popular idea to prevent school shootings is by making it harder for a citizen to own or purchase a firearm.

Ash Tillmen a sophomore at Smoky Hill said, “I’m not completely against them but because of all the shootings I do believe that they need to be controlled a lot more.”

Ash Tillmen also believes that psychological evaluations need to be increasingly more present in firearm ownership and purchase. With that being said, after the school shooting in Denver, he doesn’t feel safe at school.

Tillmen said, “After what happened with all those shootings especially being in our state not really.”

Tsomo O’Brien a freshman at Smoky Hill agrees will Tillmen that gun control needs to be more present in the U.S.

O’Brien said, “It’s not secured enough there need to be more background checks and they shouldn’t  be as easy to get and if you have a gun there needs to be more security around who has it and who has access to it.”

O’Brien’s perspective of whether or not she feels safe at school changes based on the circumstances.

O’Brien said, “Not always, it just depends on like what the situation is like cause lately with all the shootings and stuff you never know who’s next.”

Elijah Sisitki is a sophomore at Smoky Hill and doesn’t believe that firearms should be as heavily regulated as they are since it limits the common citizen’s ability to defend themselves.

Sisitki said, “With gun control your taking guns out of the good people’s hands and putting them in the bad people’s hands.”

With that being said Sisitki feels safe in school due to his ability to trust the staff during a crisis.

Smoky Hill’s staff operate under a system to which every staff member can alert the police if there is an armed suspect.

Arturo Zepeda is a School Resource Officer working under the Aurora Police Department. He said, “There are plenty of safety procedures in place for the school shooting stuff that we do as police officers and the stuff that the school abides by in regards to that type of thing. One of the biggest things that everybody knows about is a lockdown so if an active shooter comes to the school, hopefully not, but if that were to happen anybody in this building any staff member, custodian, teacher, lunch person, anybody can call a lockdown. And once that takes place cause everybody has radios once that takes place we as police officers are alerted cause we also carry a school radio we will immediately call for backup and we will start looking for our suspect.”

The police have plans to take down an armed suspect in a multitude of situations.

Zepeda said, “If we hear rounds being fired actively that’s when we start searching and neutralizing. If we hear shots for a while we might hunker down in certain areas in the school and call for more officers to come in and help us search the building in a slower and safer scenario.”

After knowing both sides of the argument, should students feel safe at school?