School Shootings

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.

To summarize, school shootings shouldn’t be taken lightly. One quick threat can lead to a nationwide memorial day. We can learn from our past with Columbine to treat all of our peers with respect if not kindness and from Sandy Hook to learn how to better protect our children. Columbine, 1999, 24 survivors . Sandy Hook, 2012, 12 survivors.

The effort of this paper is designed to provide an audience with the basic framework in preventing, reacting to, and recovering from a school shooting. By analyzing the crisis of a school shooting, this paper will lay out the practical steps in preparing schools, communities, and local agencies for a tragedy that has already shook many communities across the nation. This paper will also follow the steps necessary to implement and evaluate a school shooting preparedness plan. In concluding this paper, school staff, local agencies, and families will be able to take the practical steps towards providing a safe and comfortable learning environment for students.

The intention of this paper is to look at and present some issues and strategies that members of a school community think about when trying to create safer schools. Particularly when addressing an active shooter in a school setting. A major issue to consider when trying to keep all schools safe, is the simple fact that no two schools are the same. Understanding this can lead us to the conclusion that it is impossible to have one global plan or program that can be 100% effective in all schools. “Violence prevention programs work best when they incorporate multiple strategies and address the full range of possible acts of violence in schools. For any set of policies to work, it must be established and

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.

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.

Recently there have been many school shootings throughout the United States and the world. Most of these shooting were all connected with the shooter being on anti-depressant medications. In an article called “Medicated to death: by SSRI’s and mass killings” by Lisa Arbercheski, she writes that SSRI’s are linked to the cause of most shootings. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) is one of the most popular medications taken for depression in many countries. Some are known by their popular names like Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Paxil. These medications have many tests done and none of them prove that they cure depression or mood swings. Could these medications be connected to some of the most recent shootings like the one in Newton, Connecticut? The case is that these medications are causing adolescents to go on suicidal rampage shootings and the United States is trying to play it off like the medications have no connection.

Recently in America a tragedy occurred in San Bernardino, 14 people were murdered by 2 people that allegedly had ties to ISIS. Although officers responded in a matter of minutes, that speed isn’t always available, especially in rural areas. Is this the beginning of a change in America? I believe this is so and I also believe mass shootings should be addressed more specifically school shootings because the means of protection aren’t there. “Since 2013, there have been at least 161 school shootings in America- an average of nearly one a week.” (161 School Shootings in America Since 2013. everytownresearch.org.) That statistic includes 3 Indiana schools St. Mary’s Catholic School in Griffith, Indiana on 4/21/14, Purdue University on 1/21/14 and Indiana State on 9/29/14, also a high school in Louisville, Kentucky a day after the Indiana State shooting. These aren’t just happening on the west coast or down in Florida where the news only talks about, the places that seem to never be close, they’re happening close to home

“Shooting massacres” in school settings, a new phenomenon within the past 50 years, are extremely rare events. Over 23 years, 1990-2012, 215 fatal school shooting incidents resulted in 363 deaths, equivalent to 0.12% of national firearm homicides during that time period …… Among these, just three shooting rampages – Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and Sandy Hook Elementary School – accounted for 72 (53.3%) of these 135 deaths. The frequency of random/ rampage shooting incidents in schools has remained within the narrow range of 0 to 3 episodes per year.” (Shultz, et al., 2013, p. 84)

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

School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. Since 1764, the number of school shootings rose exponentially. In the 1990’s,

School shootings are terrifying and a big problem in today’s society. Schools have added lockdown drills, bullet proof glass and metal detectors. School should be a safe area for children to learn instead of fearing for their life. Instead of buying metal detectors and hiring more officers, there is a much easier solution in order to decrease and prevent school shootings. We have to be more alert about securing weapons at home and being aware of suspicious behavior at school in order to keep children and faculty safe.

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

The two shooters I previously talked about have mental disabilities. For example, Jose Reyes had shown signs of autism and Adam Lanza with undiagnosed schizophrenia. Not only do Jose and Adam have mental disorders, a majority of school shooters have signs of mental disorders. It's inevitable to avoid school shootings unless there is a change of gun laws but that is up to the government to figure out. Unfortunately school shootings will continue to happen and there has to be a cure for the forthcoming future to carry out the safety of kids and teachers around the

     The number of American citizens concerned with children gun violence is rapidly increasing. Nearly a million U.S. students took guns to school during 1998. It is important to note that many school shootings are committed by children who have stolen their parents’ legally owned guns. Columbine is just one example of what can happen. Over the two years ending June 30, 1999, violence in and around schools happened in 25 states resulting in 105 deaths. Nearly two thirds of the victims were primary and secondary schools students, another 11 percent were teachers or staff, and the remainders were community members slain on school property. Firearms were used in 75 percent of these deaths. For example, take the case of a nine-year-old girl who took a Glock semiautomatic pistol to school. The girl, who told officials she found the gun in an unlocked drawer in her mother’s bedroom, said she wanted it for protection against gang