Gun Violence in US schools today

Students protesting outside of Parkland high school after a school shooting

Are you okay

hopefully

just know, i love you

I love you too

forever and you’re the best brother

We’re gonna get out of here I promise

sam

Yes

are the cops here

my teacher died

…

 

            That was the text messages of Sam Zeif, 18 year old senior, and Matthew Zeif, 15 year old freshman, during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. This left people devastated and proposed the question:

Why do school shootings happen?

There is no one answer to this. All we know is that school is supposed to be a place of learning where every student feels safe. It is a place where parents drop their children off and have to trust they will be okay. Tragically this is not always the case. US government has let American parents down; they have let the whole nation down. Something must be done to change this nationwide issue. Guns do NOT belong in schools. We must all do our part to put an end to school gun violence by restricting gun rights for our children’s sake.

Many people look at school shootings and think about what can be done after the damage has already happened. Schools may put metal detectors in their entry ways or have school wide assembles helping kids cope with their trauma. However, this problem needs to be stopped at the source--guns. It needs to be terminated before the shooter even enters the building before the shooter leaves their house before the shooter gets possession of a gun. Americans usually think guns should have more restrictions only after a tragedy has occurred. Jannis Kreienkamp, author of When mass shootings fail to change minds about the causes of violence, wrote

“it seems obvious that a terrible mass shooting should result in attitude change toward support for stricter gun control laws… but why do we only think this after”

This shows that people should be fighting for more gun restrictions before a shooting occurs. Simple things like getting rid of guns when you have children or locking them up safely out of children’s reach could be the solution to saving children’s lives. Doing this it can help prevent students, families, and teachers from the unnecessary trauma, killing, and/or injuries that happen when school shootings occur.

Let’s take a look at the stats. This year alone there has been 40 plus US school shootings. America doubles sometimes even triples all other countries total school shootings. In Ritchie King’s website, How School Killings in the US Stack up against 36 Other Countries Put Together, it shows school shootings around the world. In the figure below you can see that the US has more school shooting killings than every other country listed combined. King Talks about the graph results saying

“The number of such incidents in the US was only one less than in all the other 36 countries put together. In 13 of those countries there were no incidents at all, either actual or attempted”.

US school killings compared to other countries in the world

This stat is heart wrenching. What are other countries doing that the United States isn’t? To start, other countries have stricter gun laws and most of the countries listed ban guns for every citizen. Although, in the United states every citizen has a constitutional right to bare arms. Many US citizens use guns from hunting, shooting ranges, gun shows. A lot of people’s jobs and lives revolve around guns. So, taking guns away would not help our country nor would it ban all guns. However, this right should not be taken lightly. If we want our children to truly be safe at school there needs to be some major restrictions on said gun rights. There should be thorough background checks and limitations to what kind of guns people can have especially when they have a family at home. While this may be controversial for some Americans, other countries have proven this effective. As anyone can see they don’t have nearly the amount of school shootings or killings that the US does. King even states,

        “By comparison, China—with the second-greatest number of incidents—saw 10 mass killings in the last decade, but none involving firearms.”

This proves that without firearms countries mass killings go down. The US has had more than ten mass school killings in less than one year. This is outrageous and could be solved with more gun control.

Uncle Sam and the politics of gun violence

Gun violence has become very political in the last few decades. People can now assume that right winged people are more likely to agree with more gun rights and less restrictions while left winged people agree with less gun rights and more restrictions. The opposition to gun rights, Conservatives, argue that having guns is their right due to the second amendment, which is true. However, both sides should worry about the safety of others, especially children in school. These students are your children, your grandchildren, your nieces and nephews. Our nation needs to put our children first and our guns second. The opposition also goes as far as saying that the solution to school shootings would be arming teachers. While US teachers are on the front lines of Americas gun violence epidemic, arming teachers would only add to the problem. From the ABC news interview ARMING TEACHERS?, Randi Weingarten, President of American Federation of Teachers, said

 “Let’s stop thinking that we can turn schools into armed fortresses. They should be safe havens. They have to be welcoming and safe environments for our kids.”

This reveals that arming teachers would only add to the problem does not take away from it. It is like putting a band aid on a gun wound, it only covers up the problem until more problems occur. Restricting gun rights helps solve the problem not cover it up.

So, what can you do to help this issue right now? You can vote and advocate for politicians and leaders who support gun control. You can talk to your local schools about ways they can make their school safer and more mental health friendly. At the end of the day, Americans can say they want schools to be safer but the only way to truly make that happen is to vote for people who want to make a difference on this issue.