In society today, whenever and wherever a tragic school shooting occurs, politicians and social media pounce on their chance to do something on gun control across the nation. Although the guns were the weapons during the shooting, they are not the cause of the shootings. Instead of gun control, everyone should be focusing on how to help the shooters who showed signs of mental illness. After all, a sane person would not go buy a gun with the intent of murdering several people; only a mentally ill person who became aggressive would go out and buy a gun for that purpose. Therefore, everyone should be trying to prevent the real cause of school shootings from occurring to prevent another tragic event from happening again. The main reason why school shootings, like the Virginia Tech Massacre, occur is that the shooters were mentally ill or depressed; the tragic events can be avoided if they got the psychological treatment they needed before they became too unstable. An overall solution to this is to raise awareness of depression and its warning signs in order to prevent another outbreak of depression-related violence from happening in the future.
Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter of the Virginia Tech Massacre, had a rough life during his entire childhood and it ultimately lead to his development of depression in college. He immigrated from Seoul, Korea to Virginia when he was 8 years old. Studies show that boys who “immigrate at or after puberty, who lived in a white neighborhood… [are] more likely to have a difficult time in adjusting to their cultural world” (Kim, 2007). This parallel’s Cho’s case because he struggled all his life to adapt to a multicultural society. He was neither comfortable with the Korean or American cultural communities...
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...e people advocating for better mental health care. Parents and teachers are more likely to recognize the development of depression and should be educated on what they can do to help their student and child. Since it is proven that depression can lead to violence, qualified psychologists should be readily available on campus to help students faster than outside of the school. If not that, then schools, like George Mason University, can spread awareness of depression and sponsor programs or info sessions where their students learn of depression and what they can do to help others who may be victims of depression. Baby steps like these, as well as implementing a solution practical in the modern technology-era, can accumulate and develop into a strategically effective means of preventing school shootings caused by depression across the country in each and every school.
Mental illness gets more negative attention when these school shootings happen, because all it does is add to the already deep-rooted idea that people with mental illness are dangerous. However, the truth is that if society had paid more attention to the kids who exhibited these symptoms earlier, then they might not have acted out in such an extremely violent
The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but only in cases of self-defense and hunting for food. However, the use of guns has drastically changed since 1791 when the amendment was implemented. Today, guns are not solely used in their intended ways. Since 2010, over eighty-seven school shootings have occurred within American grade schools, high schools, and universities, resulting in approximately 107 injuries and 109 murders of innocent students. The two most deadly shootings in the world occurred in the United States: the Virginia Tech University Massacre which left thirty-two dead and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which left twenty-eight dead. Each new shooting prompts a debate about gun control laws and leaves citizens wondering about the accessibility of guns; any United States citizen over the age of twenty-one that does not have any previous felonies is able to easily receive a gun license. Forty-nine out of the sixty-one school shootings that occurred between 1982 and 2012 legally obtained firearms. The statistics become even more outstanding: seventy nine percent of all shooters have been diagnosed with a mental illness or disability, including the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shooters, Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza. Cho and Lanza were diagnosed with mental illnesses and disabilities, depression and autism, respectively. Even so, they were still able to acquire the guns they needed because extensive mental health background checks did not and still do not exist; Cho purchased his own weapon and Lanza stole his mother’s guns. Although the case studies of Lanza and Cho are only two out of the many school shootings, they should be considered prime examples to illustrate the necessity to add stri...
As the world recovers from recent school shootings, people wondered why these events have occurred. They are focused on drug use, violent society, video games, bullying, and mental issues to try and explain an unexplainable event. The idea that a person would shoot others for little or no reason gave little relief to the survivors.
Eighty-nine people die from gun violence in the United States every day according to the Brady Campaign , from school children to victims of domestic violence to people going about their daily lives. As we mourn the lives of those killed in incidents of gun violence across the country, we need to take action. We should all do everything in our power to keep tragedies like this from happening again. When it comes to addressing mass shootings, we need new answers
School shootings have altered American history greatly over the past two decades. From 1997 to 2007, there have been more than 40 school shootings, resulting in over 70 deaths and many more injuries. School shoot-outs have been increasing in number dramatically in the past 20 years. There are no boundaries as to how old the child would be, or how many people they may kill or injure. At Mount Morris Township, Michigan, on February 29th, 2000, there was a 6 year old boy who shot and killed another 6 year old girl at the Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber pistol. And although many shootings have occurred at High Schools or Middle Schools, having more guns on those campuses would not be a good environment for children to grow up in. However, on a college campus, the pupils attending are not children anymore; the age range is from 17 to mid 20’s. Therefore they understand the consequences associated to the use of weapons and have gained more maturity. In April 16th, 2007, at Blacksburg, Virginia, there was a shooting rampage enacted by Sung-Hui Cho (23 years, from Centreville, VA) who fired over 170 rounds, killing 32 victims, before taking his own life at the Virginia Tech campus. Colleges and Universities would be a much safer place, for student and teacher, if guns were permitted on campus for self-defense purposes.
Gun control recently has rapidly become an even further controversial topic due to violent acts against the public by troubled individuals. How were these attacks allowed to happen? As stated in Framing Health Matters article, “In the United States, popular and political discourse frequently focuses on the causal impact of mental illness in the aftermath of mass shootings.” (.1) This issue unfortunately remains so overlooked that media sources only offer it attention after a tragedy. Not to mention the impact these situations have on the society. No normal person decides to harm people solely due to the fact that they can obtain a weapon easily. To be able to move forward with these irrational decisions the
In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School and went on a shooting spree. They killed 15 people and wounded over 20 people, including themselves. The massacre sparked debates about gun control laws, bullying, violent video games, and the internet. It is the deadliest high school shooting in US History. This shooting has become infamous and has led to aspiring school shooters to idolize the two boys and try to commit copycat crimes. The shooting had changed how people approach bullying in schools. It was the catalyst for the Zero Tolerance policy. In order to figure out the causes behind school shootings, the community, personality, mental health, and motivation of the shooter must be examined.
“Although the perpetrators of the school shootings at Littleton and other campuses have been surrounded by dangerous influences, such as television and the Internet, to which they do not know how to respond, they are responsible for their own behavior. The way to improve society is to improve individuals. Society, in particular parents, must take steps to ensure that children know the difference between right and wrong” (The Absence of Public Morality Causes School Shootings). While knowing the majority of shooters are strongly influenced by their surroundings, parents should be wise as to monitor what their children read, watch and view on the internet. The ability and ease to access a firearm should be sustained as well. Although guns will not directly harm anyone, if the weapon falls into the hands of an adolescent – whom has never handled a gun before – a very serious problem may arise. Parents need to learn to respect the age and development of their child and peach about gun safety, what is right and what is wrong, should their child start showing interest in
Mass shootings have been a prominent part in American history ever since the events of Sandy Hook – particularly, mass shootings within a school building. Lack of regulation and appropriate control has allowed for those with ill intentions to purchase a gun without any delay, walk into a school unopposed, and open fire on those that most require our protection and care. Despite this cycle of violence repeating time and time again, little has been done to significantly combat the danger of gun violence and its effect on our youth. Steps must be taken to ensure students receive an education without fear of being the next casualty – namely, the removal of guns from the surrounding area.
So if arming teachers, increasing security, or trying to identify possible shooters won’t stop shootings, what will. What these lawmakers have failed to notice is the common denominator. Not all shooters are mentally ill, not all of them show signs of violence, and not all of them are able to bring weapons to school easily. But, all of these shooters have one thing in common:
The recent gun shooting in Florida has pushed the movement on gun control ad gun laws. The students of the high school in Parkland, Florida have augmented their voice to get stricter gun control laws and fight the NRA. The cause of more gun control is justified, lives have been lost and not everyone should have gun. In our country, with such a large population, there is more possibilities of an outbreak of a mentally unstable person. This larger chance of any type of public shooting should be cause enough for the government to take action on the situation. Not only does gun violence affect the public, gun violence also affects the government “According to the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE), in 2010, gun violence cost each
Have you ever wondered why terrible acts of violence are committed such as school shootings? Why one man shot twenty children, seven staff members, his mom and then himself? Why two kids with evil intentions lead to thirteen innocent deaths and many more wounded? Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Adam Lanza and many others are involved in some of the most deadliest school massacres ever in history. They are a prevalent problem and need to be prevented before they even happen.
Kimberly Kindy, a prestigious reporter from the Washington Post, once debated, ‘“There’s no playbook for this. We don’t know what we are doing,’ he said. ‘I just know I have to keep fighting until something changes. The most precious thing in the world has been taken from me. What else can I do?’” (Kindy) The second amendment in the United States Constitution has divided this country into two parts. A side that supports the right to bear arms, and the other side that does not. Having a gun at home is necessary for some people, the excuse is said to be ‘self-defense’, but for a few has been the starting point for a massacre. Many young people think it’s pretty easy to play with a gun, or just to handle it, but people do not understand the consequences. This is how school massacres and even suicides begin. As Eric Raymond, an old-school hacker and current famous writer, acknowledges, “It is a kind of acid test, an initiation, to know that there is lethal force in your hand and all the complexities and ambiguities of moral choice have fined down to a single action: fire or not?” (Raymond). School shootings are a real issue in today’s America.
School shootings are becoming a common tragedy in our nation and even around the world. It seems every day on our televisions or newspapers we learn of a new shooting. People often wonder why someone would do such a thing or even what leads to these tragedies. The fact of the matter is that there are a wide variety of reasons to answer these questions. In order to stop these unnecessary shooting sprees, we need to break them down to their roots; finding what lead up to it, and how we can prevent another one from taking place. Amazingly enough, some people blame guns as the problem; but in reality the primary reasons of this present horror is bullying, childhood distress, and psychological disorders. However,
I remember the day the tragedy of Sandy Hook took place and my parents calling my sister and I down to join them and listen to (Who was at the time) President Barack Obama’s speech explaining what happened while he began to tear up; my parents grabbed my sister and I and held us close to comfort us, but it wasn’t helping. For the following years mass shootings became a common thread of events which I would eventually grow numb to; but enough is enough. When students come to school they want to be safe and acquire knowledge which we can use later on in life, but how are we supposed to learn when we are scared to accept their right to an education. Unfortunately nothing will change unless we take action. There are a majority of things we can do to prevent mass shootings in America but there are also things we are overlooking.