Essay On Mass Shooting

Since 2013 there have been 268 school shootings in the United States alone (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2017). School gun violence is becoming increasingly probable. It is imperative that our government and our citizens come together to create a solution and implement a plan to prevent and stop the occurrence of school gun violence. The solution, for some, is to bring more guns into the picture by arming teachers, principals, and other school officials, or place armed police officers at school sites (LaPierre, 2015). For others, the solution is to make even stricter laws regarding gun use or to get rid of these weapons altogether. These certainly are drastic options; I must say that I do believe the true solution is to increase the focus on mental health services and by extension, mental health awareness. There is simply not enough focus on the mental health of our youth and of our students. Mental health services are the most important step to making schools safer, because this solution touches the entire problem of violence at its root level.

Unfortunately, the notion of schools being a safe place is no longer a trend across American schools. Disturbing mass shootings in the U.S continue to shock the media. A school shooting is when someone attacks a school using a gun. The Secret Service says these shootings are "deliberately selected as the location for the attack". The reasons massacres occur in schools is because of poor security, violence in video games/media, and bullying. Shockingly the U.S. has the most school shootings than any other country in the world. According to the FBI, mass shootings occur, on average, every 2 weeks in the U.S. While the cause of school shootings are sometimes unpredictable, it is a growing issue and they need to be prevented. Most shooters don’t have mental issues, they have a plan to kill, so there is no singular cause that creates violent people. On April 16th, 2007, the most deadly school massacre occurred. Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-two students at Virginia-Tech. As Americans, we no longer should turn on the news and witness these gruesome murders. We try to make sense of these murders, but it’s ineffectual. There are measures we can take as a society to help. The number one question in a school massacre is, "why would a person that has a capable sense of mind even do that?” It is our moral responsibility to fix these issues. In order to stop this problem, we need to find its roots.

Recently there was a mass shooting in Las Vegas. A gunman opened fire on a concert from his hotel room leaving 58 people dead and over 500 injured. This incident has reintroduced the issue of mass shootings to our societal conversations. The topic of mass shootings is an emotional one. It triggers the most basic human fear, fear of the unknown. Most people have an emotional bias one way or another on this subject, making it a very sensitive topic of conversation. I will do my best not to offend anyone, if I do offend you please understand that it was not my intention. I will do my best to not let any bias I may have affect examination of this topic. My intention is to examine the topic in a logical manner to better understand the issue. This is a problem that is not going to fix itself. We as a society need to come up with a solution.

Even though gun violence researchers say that no law can stop mass shootings, can we still try to prevent them? Mass shootings occur more because government is not more stricter on gun control. More gun control would decrease mass shootings. But are all mass shootings tied to mental stability?

Over the past couple of decades, school shooting have seemed to occur often-- continuously shocking the nation and reminding everyone that no community is exempt from such horror. One main contributor of this hysteria is found within the media. At the catalyst of this hysteria, lies the horrific Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then, school shootings have received ample coverage-- some argue that this has romanticized school shootings, others argue that is has provided condemning coverage of the often insane perpetrators. In the first year after the Columbine shooting, over 10,000 articles were written about the event, likely setting the stage for the nationwide desire for constant coverage of such events (Elsass et al, p. 445-446).

Do you feel Gun violence has taken a bad effect on taxpayers? I do, because even if your family member hasn’t been shot or killed, it still hurt you in a way. When a person has been killed in a certain state, and the killer is a part of that state. The state happens to give away four Thousand dollars to help cover the funeral costs. If you didn’t know, that’s coming from our taxes. When a person have been shot and wounded, your taxes are being taking and helping paying for medication to keep that person out of pain. Even when the killer gets caught, your taxes will be still be a risk, because killers has to eat too.

School shootings have become well known around the world due to the coverage by the media. . These shootings are a serious concern and have parents constantly concerned about their child’s safety when they are at school and also have students thinking twice about any unusual or suspicious behavior. The media appears to play a large part in school shootings and it is important to analyze the deviant behaviors of the shooters in these horrific instances and the fear they create in schools. Does the media play a large part in school shootings or does the media play a large part in the sensationalism of school shootings and the fear they create both in schools and with parents?

A very controversial topic throughout the United States and the world is guns. As American citizens, we have a constitutional right to own a fire arm. But why is a gun so important and why is it such a huge part of the United States division of its people? The division starts with people using this Second Amendment to harm people. In recent years, mass shootings have become the norm for the United States and that outcome is not the purpose of the Second Amendment. These mass shooting happen everywhere from movie theatres to concert halls. But the majority of these mass shootings seem to happen at schools with innocent children aging from kindergarten to high school students. With the deaths of children in school rising, the urge to find a solution and develop prevention tactics have become top priority. Not only limiting the access to guns but finding out the reason behind the shootings will help aid in the fight to stop gun violence in schools.

I have been a student in the Thomas County School System ever since I started pre-school. During my time here, I have loved every minute of it, learning and having great experiences with friends and teachers here. Over the last four years of my high school experience, I have noticed that there have been more threats of bombings and shootings around the nation. Even though we do have a safe school and take precautions, there is still room for error. I am proposing that we make school a safer place for kids to learn by installing bulletproof glass as well as door-stoppers in each class.

Around the world, guns are used in various things such as hunting, warfare, shooting ranges, and much more. There is one particular action that has increased drastically within the past decades. This is none other than mass shootings in the United States. Since the spark in mass shootings, people have discussed ways to prevent this from happening, but others do not want the laws to change. Although each argument has their benefits and liabilities, America must do something about the deaths and injuries of thousands of people. Changing the laws would have benefits such as decrease in deaths and injuries of others and reduce the societal costs, but argues against the Constitution.

There are many problems in this world today. One main problem in the United States and all over the world is mass shootings. This problem is a huge one because it involves people killing other people and that is just unacceptable. In the last ten years there have been over 53 mass shootings in the United States, not including the rest of the world (Chris Wilson). In the last thirty-five years there have been seven-hundred and twenty-two and then one thousand one-hundred seventy-seven (Chris Wilson). If you look at the number of people that are killed or being wounded, you will notice that with new devices being introduced. One of the devices that have been introduced is a bump stock. This device is a stock for a semi-automatic rifle that can basically turn your semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic rifle. They are considering making this attachment to a rifle illegal to the public.

"I'm angry someone would do this to us. There are lives ruined, families ruined, and our whole school year is ruined" (Brackely 1). Casey Brackely, once a student that attended Columbine High School, remembers the tragedy of the horrific Columbine shooting that killed and injured many students. Mass shootings in the United States have been on the rise since the 1980’s, especially in the last decade. These shooters motives and profiles are almost all terrifyingly alike. Many of these shooters try to imitate and parallel the tragic shooting of the Columbine High School in 1999. These shootings have made peaceful organizations, such as an elementary school; become a place of violence and death. Currently, in the United States, an epidemic of

Nine students were killed at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. A man opened fire in a church, in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, including the pastor. Twenty-seven were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Twelve were killed in the Washington Navy Yard. This is only a few examples from a very long list. The grim truth is that mass shootings are becoming the new normal. Every few months, another mass shooting occurs and the public goes through the same routine of mourning, honoring, and ultimately debating. What causes these manic episodes of multiple, indiscriminate gun deaths? Some push for more gun control, others argue that the U.S. mental health system is a failure. Controversy aside,

There is an assumption that if you understand the minds of serial killers, or persons who commit mass shootings, that it may help prevent mass shootings. “Mass shootings are not on the rise, but have held steady over three decades, randomly clustering in time to trick our brains into finding a pattern of increase where none actually exists” (Shermer 3). Mass shootings happen at varying times without rhyme or reason. Some think that a psychological disorder or some genetic defect could be the reason people commit these crimes. Although we cannot prevent mass shootings, we can educate on how mental health issues can be a precursor to such a tragedy, and how better laws can create a safer environment.

On October 1st 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of country music concertgoers in Las Vegas, resulting in fifty eight people dead and four hundred and eighty nine people injured. Around ten o'clock sixty-four year old Stephen Paddock fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition from his hotel room on the thirty second floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. Roughly an hour after he had shot his last round from his hotel room, he was found dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound. The couple days following the shooting, many elected officials and media outlets were extremely cautious about how they described the man responsible for one of the largest mass shootings in modern American history. A man who does not fit the “mass shooter profile”. No expensive Mexican border wall could have prevented this. No Muslim ban that stops immigrants in randomly chosen countries from reaching the United States could have reduced the likelihood of this happening. Paddock, like a majority of the mass shooters in the United States, was a white American man and this very simple detail changes how the whole entire horrific situation is discussed by the media and the national discourse.