Terrorism is a major threat to the entire world, and we need to do something about it. Many people have said that attention should be given to parts of the world like Lebanon, where terrorism occurs nearly every day, rather than focus all of our attention toward Paris. Some people have called it racism on our part because there are more white people in that area, but the truth is that unexpected events draw more attention than expected ones. Terrorism should not be an expected event anywhere, but are the people showing more support for France rather than the other recently terrorized countries really to blame? Showing support is a wonderful gesture that will show the people of these terrorized areas that they are not alone. This will not, however, stop future terrorist attacks.

The people that can stop future attacks are the people in power. For example, there was a lot of controversy about a Muslim student being arrested for bringing in a clock that was thought to possibly be an explosive device. This was not a school project, the student just wanted to show a clock that he built to others. If a student decides to randomly bring in a device that he or she created, should everyone just assume that it is not a threat? What if it actually had been a bomb? Is it not better to be safe than sorry? I am not defending the arrest as there were not reasonable grounds to support the arrest. A better solution to this problem would have a bomb squad inspect the clock. That seems like very drastic measures to take, but the potential threat of a bomb requires drastic measures to be taken. The student is not at fault for this incident rather the government is.

The government is not doing its job to protect us from terrorism. Schools are a common place for terrorism to occur as well as movie theaters and malls. We need laws to protect innocent civilians from people that are stupid enough to think that a loving God wants them to kill others. Bags need to be checked before anyone enters any of these buildings. Suspicious items should not be allowed inside. Now we need to draw the line as to what is suspicious and what is not. Guns and explosives are the clear major weapons of terrorism. Guns are obvious to decipher, but explosives can have many different appearances, therefore no electronics should be permitted inside these buildings. Many people including myself would not be happy about not being allowed to bring my phone to any of these places. You could also make the argument that having a phone within reach is important in case you need to be notified by someone of an emergency. This would have to be decided in a courtroom, but there is no legitimate reason to bring any other electronic device such as a clock into one of these buildings.

We decided to impose high security at airports after September 11, 2001. Are we just waiting for something horrific to happen again at someplace like a school? School shootings have raised the topic of gun control laws as to whom should be able to own a gun. Instead of worrying about that, why don't we worry about where people are allowed to take their guns. Guns are already not allowed in schools, but no one is enforcing it. The police need to stop spending their time busting college parties and start protecting innocent people from being killed.

In my high school experience I noticed that lock down drills will not stop a person with a gun. Sure, we are not leaving the door wide open for them, but we are just like sitting ducks waiting for the person to shoot their way in. I would like for someone to make an argument that locking a door with a gunman in the school is a safer method than going out the window and getting as far away from the school as possible, because I cannot think of a legitimate one. This is all of course assuming that the gunman was able to shoot his or her way through the guards checking bags. We need to make it as difficult as possible for terrorists to succeed. We may not be able to stop terrorism completely, but we can do everything that we can to protect the lives of innocents because there is much more that our government should be doing.