Preventing School Shootings: How Do We Keep Kids Safe at School?
Preventing School Shootings: How Do We Keep Kids Safe at School?
In today’s world, parents fear sending their children to school. In the middle of algebra classes, and band rehearsals, students must practice lockdown drills in case a shooter ever enters their school. This is not something any parent wants to imagine. So, how do we keep kids safe? How do we prevent another Columbine, or Sandy Hook, or Oxford from happening?
As of September 2020, the Center for Homeland Defense and Security found that there had been 68 school shootings since Columbine in 1999 (Melgar 2020). School shootings in the United States happen an average of once every 77 days. This number is show to be increasing over the years (Melgar 2020). Having 68 school shootings in eleven years is such a high number, and to have that number growing is startling. From 1999 to 2014, the average number of days between shootings was 124 days. From 2015 to 2018, the average was 77 days (Melgar 2020). That’s a drastic change. The idea of school shootings becoming even more frequent should be upsetting for everyone.
The Everytown for Gun Safety fund has created a plan to help keep children safe at school, and to stop school shootings from being a normal occurrence. The plan lists eight targets to stop gun attacks in schools. The targets are: 1. Pass Extreme Risk Laws 2. Encourage Secure Firearm Storage 3. Raise the Age to Purchase Semi Automatic Firearms 4. Require Background Checks on All Firearm Sales 5. Create Threat Assessments in Schools 6. Put in School Security Upgrades 7. Create Trauma-Informed Emergency Planning 8. Create Safe and Equitable Schools (Everytown Research & Policy 2021).
While Everytown’s plan is thorough, and hits many key points, it would be extremely hard to pass. The United States is so polarized that passing gun laws or any legislation to prevent school shootings will face a lot of backlash. Because of this, I think Everytown’s plan will be viewed as too extreme. We have so many school shootings in the United States, but school shootings have become a political issue, and that makes it nearly impossible to do anything to stop them. Schools can work on promoting mental health awareness, they can do research-baked risk assessments, and can do more to prevent bullying. This certainly won’t prevent all school shootings, but it could be away to stop the number of school shootings from increasing.
Sources:
Everytown Research & Policy (2021). In Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. Retrieved from https://everytownresearch.org/report/preventing-gun-violence-in-american-schools/
Melgar, L. (2020, September 17). ARE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS BECOMING MORE FREQUENT? WE RAN THE NUMBERS. In Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Retrieved from https://www.chds.us/ssdb/are-school-shootings-becoming-more-frequent-we-ran-the-numbers/
2 comments
Hi Makaila!
Thank you for stating such important questions regarding the safety of children at schools.
School shootings are a horrendous event that involves mass killings of innocent people. The most frustrating fact out of this crime is that the location of the committed crime is a regular school. This makes me think about the scale of tragedies since schools are supposed to be educational institutions where safety is the main priority. Definitely, considering the number of shootings, it seems that security systems at schools should be improved and I believe that after such mass killings, kids who were witnesses of such a bloodshed should receive proper treatment, including verbal therapy , otherwise it might become the trauma lasting the lifetime.
Great post!
Makaila, great post! I like the perspective you take on this issue. The laws would be extremely hard to pass, and I think that this point is really important, even though the laws would make the situation more safe. Thanks for your post!
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