In gun control debate, Brandeis student encourages different perspective

Brandeis Law student Devon Skeens remembers the day he had to put his seventh-grade class on lockdown because a student had brought a gun to school.

Skeens, now a rising 2L at Brandeis Law, was teaching in the inner city of Baltimore as part of the Teach for America program. And that lockdown experience -- which will stick with him forever but didn't even make the local news -- has influenced the way he sees today's gun control debate.

"We didn't even have grief counselors," Skeens writes in a July 8 guest column for The Courier-Journal. "The week went on, business as usual. Why? Because for many inner city kids in inner city schools, it is business as usual."

In the column, Skeens encourages gun rights and gun control advocates alike to remember that mass shootings are not the only type of gun violence in our country -- gun violence in inner cities is rampant.

Skeens' experience as an inner-city school teacher has influenced the way he approaches law school. He hopes to learn about the policies that affect the communities where his students live.

"I decided that a lot of the issues my students were facing a daily basis were not ones I as a classroom teacher could address," he said. "Their issues were often based in poverty and lack of opportunity."

In the column, Skeens calls for gun owner licensing, a state-sponsored testing system and gun owner registration and title transfers.