AACC students said in April the college should install metal detectors on campus.

In an informal poll of 20 students, 14 said they would support metal detectors even though the campus has little crime. 

In fact, all 20 students in the poll said they feel safe on the Arnold campus.

Yet the college would benefit from metal detectors “to prevent anything from happening instead of waiting for something to happen,” Ty Wallace, a first-year transfer studies student, said.

Between January and March, eight school shootings in the U.S. resulted in injuries or deaths, according to the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety. One of those was at Great Mills High School in St. Mary’s County.

That shooting was the 20th incident involving a gun at a U.S. school this year.

Approximately 10 percent of public schools in the U.S. have metal detectors, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“Better safe than sorry,” third-year early education student Hannah Lunsford told Campus Current. 

Nicole Carstens, a first-year criminal justice student, agreed. “AACC should have metal detectors … to catch people who are bringing in the weapons,” she said.

But seven students in the survey said they would oppose metal detectors on AACC campuses.

“You don’t hear about the students who cause havoc because we don’t have a problem here,” said first-year biochemistry student Aretta Goodwin, who said she would oppose the installation of metal detectors on campus.

Physics student Patrick Ryan agreed. “I feel 100 percent unthreatened at school,” he said.

One student questioned how AACC would monitor metal detectors if they were in every building. “There are so many different buildings,” said Paige DeSimone, a first-year psychology student. “Who would monitor them all?”

First-year nursing student Katelyn Birmingham agreed. She said that even with metal detectors, “if someone wants to smuggle in something onto campus, they can.”