Taking the Next Trendy Shot

The real difference between school and a shooting range? The students don't know they're targets. In recent years it seems that the public hear more and more about mass shootings whether it's a school, a concert, any public gathering that can attract disturbed people.

Mass shootings are large killings of multiple victims by the use of firearms-related violence, they range from cases like the Orlando Nightclub Shooting in 2016, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Whether it is a small town school shootings, shooting at a Beyoncé concert, killing of the nice family next door, all of these fall under the category of mass killings. The main question proposed is why have mass shootings have started occurring more and more in the modern day? Mass killings have been going on for years, the first recorded one in U.S. history was back in 1949 when Camden, New Jersey resident Howard Unruh shot and killed 13 people from a window down into a crowded street. He most likely would have kept shooting if the officers had not used tear gas on him which forced him out. Since then there has been a constant influx of mass murders that has steadily been growing more and more.

When looking back at recent history and the event that stands out to most is the Columbine High School Shooting where others see an increase in how serious this issue has become. The terrifying part about the Columbine High School Massacre was that it was not the first single shooter mass killing to happen, it became so infamous because the attackers (Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris) who had history of mental illnesses but were never helped walked straight into their high school heavily armed and ran into little to no obstacles and weren’t stopped until after killing 13 people. With the Columbine High School Massacre the two perpetrators had a history of being bullied severely in front of teachers and students, long history of mental illnesses, posting threatening and disturbing things online, had made videos of them attacking their school, and joined a group of other outcast kids and calling themselves the "Trench Coat Mafia." all of this culminated into them believing the only sensible action for them was to commit this heinous act of violence. With the disturbed teens that didn’t have any help and were pushed further away from societies exceptions decided their best cause was to turn to take the lives of 12 fellow students and a great teacher.

Mass shootings have steadily been growing over time and have become more frequent. Since then it seems the fear of mass shootings has greatly increased in the past few years since Columbine we’ve had at least 50 shootings, if not more, in the past 19 years. That is a crazy factor that's at roughly 31 shootings a year! 11 of those mass shootings have been school shootings. The Washington Post put up an article and it is constantly being updated with current stats on mass shootings and it shows information on each victim in shootings, weapons used, locations, and a timeline for all US shootings that have occurred. All mass shootings are a scary and serious subject, but school shootings are much more alarming to teenagers because most kids spend 8 hours or more in school daily for 13 years, it's a very real and terrifying thought. When thinking about school shootings the incidents that come up most are Columbine, Sandy Hook Elementary, Stoneman Douglas High School, etc. and these incidents instate a sense of fear in modern-day students when attending school, whether public, private or charter. Even in Taylorsville. One student at the school stated that “I don't feel like there are ways for people to make it a safer way like it's already happening so you just gotta hope nothing happens.” Hope, something that isn’t solid or factorial a belief that is not solid but can change at any moment. Instead of trying to create safer environments for the students, some just don’t want to acknowledge it, by pushing it aside and hoping nothing happens the individual hopes to live a more jovial life. When asked why not try to stop the people committing these crimes they argued that “Like you don't know who exactly is gonna do it so…” This is a very good point, usually the victims don't know who will do this so how can plans to stop what isn't known happen?

Some possible steps to stopping the issue that people are thinking are is having doors lock from the inside, lock doors to the school so people can't enter but students can leave, panic buttons, and possible arming teachers. Of all these possible steps, arming teachers is the most controversial. When asked one student they quickly responded with a strong no believing “The same way as students have a tendency to shoot up a school there is a tendency for teachers to shoot up,” and it is a fair though, firearms have a tendency to make most people uneasy. While this student felt it wasn’t a good idea another was all for it, he started by saying that Some teachers are definitely not trustworthy with guns others are alright, and he said he would feel better coming to school and know that someone was armed besides the school officer. Also when talking to Officer Franco, the police officer over the schools, she gave her opinion and was strongly for arming faculty members at schools, because if it's just one armed personnel on campus (Officer Franco) it's a lot more difficult when pushing through 2,000 kids to get to the issue. She agrees that training and real-life scenarios should be occurring to teachers when arming them with firearms. Parents who have a son attending 2nd grade and they thought that arming teachers was a good idea however teachers should be able to have the choices of having a gun cause the mother wouldn't trust someone who doesn't feel comfortable with a gun to be protecting her son. This family chooses not to have a firearm in the house because of their son, but they are wanting to get one. The mother said, “Having a gun makes it so you can better control the situation instead of going at it bare handed and have physical limitations (age, weight, build, etc) get in the way of defending those you love.”

Besides school shootings, concerts can be mass shooting targets as well, the 2017 mass shooting that occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Route 91 Harvest music festival where a single gunmen shot and killed 58 people and left 851 injured. Officer Franco works concerts and usually, security guards are not armed, she carries off duty but some people don’t. However, besides the armed security or armed civilians, how do the people who are unarmed feel while attending these activities? One student brought up that the fear of mass shootings are always in the back of his head after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting it became even more apparent how this can happen. When attending concerts or conventions (like Comic-Con) they perform bag checks but the issue is a lot of the time they just flash a light in the bag real quick and send the excited fan in, so most of the time people can sneak stuff in and no one would realize it. So when it comes to these events should people be forced to pour out their bags? Would this created a safer environment? Would people be willing to do it? The problem here is to make these issues disappear is to have everyone be willing to give and take for the cause. In this case, everyone needs to be willing to turn out their bags if expecting change.

What drives an individual to act out these terrible crimes. Some believe the main issue is Mental Illnesses. Mental health is a big factor in these cases, a cause of false diagnosis and giving wrong medication. People are scared to admit mental health issues cause they don't wanna be seen differently. Also, an issue is people who do reach out and talk to professionals are sometimes given meds that aren't the kind they need, they're just given a drug without further diagnosis and when they fail the patient believes it's their fault. One student who was interviewed said that a big cause of the “outburst” of shootings is the popularity they are getting people are constantly posting about them. They happen all the time but the News make it seem more apparent. This then can lead to the disturbed individual wanting attention and deciding that a mass execution is a way to do it. Shooters are seeking attention, it's similar to people posting photos of their food or of what they're doing. Humans all want attention, the big difference is most people shoot photos others shoot people.

What changes need to be made to make public events safer than they currently are? Deeper bag checks at concerts or the arming of teachers? This article isn’t written to give answers it's to make others think and come up with their own answers. Mass shootings are a real threat that is becoming more and more real, as this was written another mass killing where 5 people were killed in Bakersfield, California this just proves that the trend of mass shootings are on the rise and precautions need to be put into place to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

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