School Shootings
Forty-five nationwide shootings occurred in the year 2015 where numerous innocent children were killed by cold, hearted adults. Enough is enough with these unforgivable tragedies happening again and again. No matter what schools say about ways already enforced, it is obviously not working because since the well-known shooting of Sandy Hook there has been 142. School is a place to teach and give knowledge to students in a happy, healthy setting. When kids are going to school they are not happy to learn when schools have tendencies to be attacked by an insider or outsider. Children are dying, the future of America are being killed in a place where they are forced to go by law. Loving parents send these children in hopes to
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Schools should be doing as much as they can to most effectively prevent these tragic shootings from occurring.
School shootings are a common occurrence on daily news. Students shouldn’t terrify going to school with the mindset that a shooter will show up with intention of killing people. Ideally, students leave home for school to learn, and not worried someone will come in and shoot everyone. When I was younger I would go to the bathroom worried a shooter would enter my school leaving me alone in a life or death situation. School security improvement is extremely important because children should feel safe and never in danger. Also, schools need better ways of helping children feel safe when they come for six hours everyday. More could be done for students, not only as prevention from shootings occurring but from relieving young children of unnecessary anxiety.
The lack of school surveillance plays a big role for school shootings. Author of the book Rampage: the Social Roots of School Shootings, Katherine Newman states that “Failures of surveillance systems that are intended to identify troubled teens before
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Newman adds her feelings towards guns in her book Rampage: the Social Roots of School Shooting. She says, “Clearly a school shooting cannot occur unless a youth can attain unsupervised access to a weapon(Rampage, 231).” Shannon Watts, founder of the organization Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, goes more into the topic by saying school shootings are getting so high that it is a "gun epidemic out of control(Watts).” She goes on about her opinions for guns accessibility to stricken and says “It is never an accident when a child gets an adult's gun(Rampage, 231).” She continues by saying, "It is always criminal negligence on the part of the adult who owns the gun(Rampage, 231)" Enforcing stricter background checks, laws against high-capacity magazines and letting people know easy ways to lock and store guns out of children’s reach would decrease shootings especially in
School should be a place of peace and opportunity, but gaps in the system of gun control threatens the safety of faculty and students. School shootings have killed a total of 297 lives, young and old (Slate Magazine). Gun control has been a continuous nationwide debate for many years. It seems that no one wants to take a stance against guns unless they are personally affected. In order to take control of the matter and prevent more incidents from continuing schools need to change. To achieve a safe environment in schools need to educate faculty, safe and students, heighten security, and assess mental health issues.
Major events have crafted the United States and other nations into what they are today. Going from world wars in the 1940’s, to civil rights movements in the 1960’s, to extravagant national debt today, have all played a part in shaping our nation. Being from rural Mississippi, world news being made here is uncommon. We see all of our major news from televisions or newspapers, and this “news” is all happening elsewhere, far from here. Whether it is a good thing that we do not make the big news or not, the fear of uncertain events still lingers. From shootings in schools to bombings in cities, we are fortunate for being seemingly far from these dangers. Even though no physical effects pertain to me, mental pain and fear stays and leaves doubt
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.
You hear almost every day another school goes into lock down or some crazy lunatic takes a gun to school its every tragic to hear of students and teachers getting shot. You hear of parents so afraid to send their child to school or not knowing when they drop their son or daughter off it will be there last. What if we can take preventive measures to help prevent a troubled individual or make them think twice about taking a gun to school? There are many things that schools can do to secure the students inside and are being implemented, but who are the students always around? And who sees the students more than anyone else? The teachers and I believe we can do the most good by arming them with guns after the proper training and
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.
During the past few years, the number of school shootings has increased markedly. In 2013, there were 19 school shootings that occurred, taking so many innocent lives. Some may remember the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14th, 2013. It was the second deadliest massacre shooting in United States history, behind the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre. Adam Lanza shot twenty children, six staff, his mother, and himself that day. School shootings are tragic. Violence continues to increase with these shootings, as well as with violence within the schools among the students. The big question is, how do we protect ourselves from these horrible occurrences? How do teachers protect the innocent lives of their students? One common suggestion is for the teachers and administration to be armed. The premise is that if the school staff has possession of firearms this would discourage shooters, thereby making the schools much safer. However, it is my belief that teachers should not be able to have access to weapons. There should never be any type firearm on a school property, excluding trained security personnel, such as police officers and security guards.
School shootings have become a tragedy so common in America, that all of us has been affected in one way or another. Despite the fact that they happen once every few years, one time should be the enough and change should follow, this is not the case in most places. Some people think the solution to this problem can be solved by stricter gun laws, others believe the problem lies in Mental Health Awareness, both are uncertain but are the best option people can think of. Being a student and a member of the community, both of are well thought of solutions but they have their flaws. I believe the best way for schools to be safer is for the school system to be more in their community.
Thirteen people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999, thirty-three died during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, and twenty-seven people, twenty of whom were children no older than seven, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 (Kirk). These name only a few of the larger and most well-known school shooting incidences. In total, 297 people have lost their lives due to school-based shootings since 1980 (Kirk). Although this number may be small in comparison to death by guns overall, these instances are completely unwarranted and it is likely that they could have been avoided or at the very least reduced. These people, college and high school students, teachers, and even children, might still be alive today if our
There has been an average of one school shooting every week in America since the Sandy Hook shooting. On the fourteenth of December, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20-year-old Adam Lanza not only killed his mother in her home, but also twenty children and six members of staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This was to be the third deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The Huffington Post reports that as of 2014, there have been over 200 school shootings. These have resulted in at least 94 deaths and over 156 serious and minor injuries. And, with an issue as emotive and contentious as the murder of school children, the question has been frequently asked: why do school shootings happen?
School shootings are terrifying to think about, but there are ways to help prevent the massacres from ever happening again. The first known school shooting was at the Texas Tower at the University of Texas in 1966 where Charles Whitman shot and killed 16 people while injuring 31 others. Who would have known since that date that we would have more then 200 deaths on school campuses? The most storied shooting in the 90’s was probably the Columbine massacre where on April 20, 1999 Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 32 students and faculty before turning the guns on themselves. The horror scene from the day will always be remembered in many lives and will continue over the years. There were many other horrible shootings over the years as
“That could never happen in my school.” This is one of the first thoughts that goes through a students mind when they hear about a school shooting. The fact is though, it can. School shootings can happen at any school at any time. Lack of security is only a small part of the problem. The major issue lies in the low morality of students and warning signs overlooked by administration.
I believe that it is agreed by all, that the number of annual school shootings has brought the nations public education system into a deplorable state. With the annual number of school shootings since 2013 ranging from a low of 37 to a high of 65 in both 2015 and 2017. Furthermore whoever can solve this issue with a fair, cheap, and easy method of making the educational system of America safe again; and remove all possible risk of
My final way of either stopping or reducing school shootings is when a parent buys a pistol or a semi-Auto Rifle which can be bought for about 300 to 600 dollars and magazines only costing a couple of dollars for a AR-15, parents should just simply not tell their children that they own a weapon and in the case that the teen or child finds out you just simply get a weapon case but if you can not get that find a drawer or a place that can contain a weapon and just simply go to the store and buy a cheap lock with a key or
Protection in schools should be an important idea that needs to be done to keep our schools safe.In the year 2018, and many years before, numerous shootings have been occuring in schools. I feel it is time that we put an end to it. To name a few, on December 14, 2012 many students and staffs lives were taken due to guns. On February 14, 2018 the same event happened which is indeed horrific. Something must be done to stop these tragedies. After the most recent and deadly mass shooting a rally was taken place all over the world on March 24th, 2018. Many students and parents attended that rally and spoke out about what needs to be done. There were survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting and celebrities who spoke out about the event that occured. I think school shootings and gun violence is very scary and nerverecking being a middle school student. When I wake up in the morning getting ready to go school I never know how to feel because I could be killed that day in a place where we are supposed to learn and be safe. It is very scary being a student and having to
Critics of more school safety measures say that [to] “maintain that many of the measures that have been proposed or enacted at colleges, middle schools and high schools infringe on students' rights.”(School Safety, np) According to Ken Trump a supporter of school safety, and the president of National School Safety and Security Measure says “[Schools] owe it to our students, school staff, and parents to get beyond the political and academic rhetoric of the zero tolerance debate.”(School safety, np) Schools need do more with the staff at the school and spend more time teaching teachers what to do in the event of this crisis. Schools need to implement more safety measure to insure that students and staff are safe. Many supporters of expanded school-safety laws argue that the Virginia Tech massacre could have been prevented if Cho, who had a history of erratic behavior, had been adequately dealt with.(School Safety, np) Some school shootings could be prevented if schools took a bigger step towards the greater good of the school and its community by placing in higher level security measures in school. Schools need to be more lenient to telling parents or police about troubled kids that could threaten the student body. If schools were to pay more attention to the places safety was a concern and security measures needed to be in place then