“Guns are the leading cause of death among American children and teens. One out of ten gun deaths are age 19 or younger,” according to sandyhookpromise.org. In today’s world, this statistic is disturbingly unsurprising to much of the American population. To many, school shootings and gun violence among teens are simply commonplace because, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, these acts are poisoning our daily lives and misconstruing the ideas people have of what the normalities of society are. As guns become more accessible nationwide, they are making their way into the hands of adults and even children. For many children, the sole purpose of having a gun is to use it to take the lives of those around them, simply because they can. By allowing restrictions on guns and security to become more relaxed, during a time when they need to be enforced more than ever before, society is practically enabling the murders that come from these so-called “normal” shootings.
With each gun that makes its way into the hands of someone incapable of handling it with caution and security, institutions like schools are put at a higher risk of being targeted and attacked by these hate crimes. Before more innocent lives are lost, we must work to develop a universal understanding of how intolerable school shootings are and examine the safety measures that can be implemented to prevent them.
Many schools, like our own, recognize the true severity of the recent increase in school shootings and are taking every possible precaution to prevent them. From increasing the number of lockdown drills students have each month to incorporating police force surveillance throughout the campus, selective schools are cracking down on school shootings by reducing their likeliness before they have the chance to occur. In addition to physically keeping students safer, these efforts enable students to have increased peace of mind while at school.
Isabella Rampersad, grade 11, stated that the increased security measures being enforced by schools, “Make all of us students feel more safe going to school every day,” which benefits overall mental stability for children and adolescents. While Lake Highland and various other schools are lucky enough to have the resources to implement these effective measures, it is important to acknowledge that not all schools are so fortunate. Too often, the security put in place to keep us safe is deemed annoying when, in reality, it is a privilege. Nevertheless, there are always precautions that can be taken to reduce the number of school shootings and threats of violence, no matter the situation of the particular school and the area surrounding it.
In Volusia County, Florida, for example, Sheriff Mike Chitwood has brought a new technique of disciplinary enforcement for students who threaten to partake in gun violence at schools. Upon bringing each offender into police custody, Sheriff Chitwood proceeds to post the mugshot of this individual on police social media which has become extremely popular, making national headlines. By bringing attention to the severity of what these threats are doing, Sheriff Chitwood hopes to establish awareness of the punishments that these individuals will face. It encourages people to address these crimes with the seriousness that they deserve. Following the recent rise of school shooting threats, in Florida specifically, Sheriff Chitwood publicly shared his intentions when dealing with offenders, stating, “Since parents, you don’t want to raise your kids, I’m going to start raising them,” according to ABC News.
Sheriff Chitwood strongly believes that children who commit adult crimes should be punished as adults, and regardless of how controvertial this opinion is, it does hold some validity. Recent events have shown that it doesn’t take the direct involvement of an adult for school shootings or threats of school shootings to occur. All it really takes is a weapon and a person with a motive of some sort. In fact, the bulk of the threats Sheriff Chitwood has publicized have come from students who already have some type of weapon in their possession. In many cases, the student has acquired a weapon from their parents that was not adequately secured, leaving officials unsure of who is at fault. This leaves us all wondering one thing: Where is the line drawn between children being seen as individuals and children being seen as their parents’s liability upon committing a potentially life-threatening crime?
Aside from leading to controversial opinions and societal division on how gun violence offenders should be dealt with, school shootings are forever changing how people attempt to get their message of gun violence awareness across all different age groups. Just recently, around six years after their son, Joaquin Oliver, was tragically murdered in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, Manuel and Patricia Oliver released a video game titled The Final Exam. This video game centers around a simulation of a school shooting where players have one goal: to make it out of school alive. The game itself is supposed to resemble the experience of their son Joaquin in hopes of bringing awareness to adolescents regarding the importance of gun legislation and restrictions. By conveying their message in the form of a video game, Manuel and Patricia Oliver hoped to gain the attention of adolescents, particularly high school students. The game provides players with an intriguing mission and set goal they have to reach if they wish to complete the game according to CBS News.
While this idea is fairly ingenious, it is also extremely disturbing and is a perfect example of how school shootings are practically ripping our society apart. This video game is just one demonstration of violence making its way into every aspect of the upbringing and lives of children. But what’s next? Will students be exposed to in-person simulations of school shootings to prepare them for a situation that could mean life or death? Will these simulations eventually become normalized just as school shootings have now been for some time? Will students ever feel safe in school again?
While none of these questions have an immediate answer, they all center around a similar main idea: We must stop the increase in gun violence and school shootings before they become so common that they are viewed as a normal part of American life and upbringing. At this point in time, there is still hope that society can turn itself around if we really work on implementing safety measures to prevent these acts of violence. But soon enough, it will be virtually impossible for anything to be done to overpower the force of weapons and the offenders who choose to use them to take the lives of others. So, before school shootings have the chance to become further normalized in society, and overpower the restrictions that desperately need to be put in place to stop them, we must consider all the lives that will be lost if we do not take action now. In the words of Mrs. Amanda Jones, “Be smart. Be safe. Know that you are loved. And look out for the other guy.”
