The Rising Issue Of School Shootings In The United States Of America

There has been a plethora of school shootings in the US the last 40 years. Some of these school shootings are more tragic and news worthy. The school shootings that have attracted the most attention are: Columbine, Blacksburg, Sandy Hook and the most recent, Parkland. These 4 shootings have all occurred in the last 2 decades. In the aftermath of these shootings a cycle of events starts. In these events there are gun proponents and gun opponents who has different points of view on the gun laws amongst other political topics.

The majority of the gun opponents are democrats and are the ones that want a change in the gun legislation while the gun proponents which are the republicans use the 2nd amendment as their defense by saying it infringes upon their right to bear arms. On Psychology Today I read an article where I able to see a tweet Donald Trump made that went something like “so many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed. This has to be reported to the authorities.” In this tweet, I think his point of view is shown pretty good. He doesn’t even mention the gun laws.

The perpetrators of these attacks have some similarities. If you, for an example, take the shootings at Sandy Hook, Santana High School and Chadron High School you would notice that the parents of all the perpetrators were divorced but personally my parents got divorced recently and of course its kind of tough but I think for these kids it’s a snowball effect. It’s one thing on top of another leading to this. If you look at the mental health of the majority of these perpetrators you will see that they could have dealt with anger problems, depression etc. When you have students like this then you need adequate staffing on schools to spot these signs before it’s too late.

In the weapons of choice there is also one crucial similarity. If you look at the weapons used in the stretch of time from 1984-2018 you will figure out that rifles are the second most used weapon in school shootings. The AR-15-style assault rifle is especially a big problem because of its capability to kill. I read about the AR-15 rifle in an article published by USA Today where I learned a few things about it. This weapon has gained a lot of popularity due to it being very easy to customize. This includes being able to attach an extended clip which is perfect if you’re looking to commit a mass shooting. The AR-15 is a weapon meant for war and is not meant for defense but because of the gun laws in the US this weapon is fairly easy to acquire causing that the Americans own around 8.000.000 AR-15 style rifles. The ease of picking up a weapon was also proven in a video I watched were a 13-year-old boy fails to buy alcohol, cigarettes, scratch-offs and porn but he was able to purchase a. 22 caliber rifle.

I consider the 2nd amendment as one of the biggest reasons for all of these school shootings in the US. The 2nd amendment states: 'A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' You have to remember that this amendment was ratified when the most lethal gun existing was a musket. In today’s society, there are guns that can slaughter dozens of civilians in the matter of seconds. In my opinion, the 2nd amendment is simply just outdated and does not belong in today’s modern world where we have police and the army.