Ever since the notorious Columbine High School shooting in Colorado nearly twenty years ago, shootings within American schools have risen, with no signs of slowing down. This time around, the shooting unfolded within the Houston suburb of Santa Fe and it ended with ten survivors and ten casualties with the perpetrator, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, being charged with capital murder.

Need I remind you, this is the 218th shooting to take place on American soil, and even with the action taken by our government, these school shootings are seriously becoming an epidemic! Not to mention, a lot of students at Santa Fe High School supported the activists who survived the Parkland, Florida shooting three months back, which only makes this tragedy even more devastating.

Just like everyone else, I'm getting very sick and tired of both the government and the public doing the same exact thing every time there's a school shooting. You know, the media tendency to villify the mental health issues of the perpetrators, regardless of them being dead or alive? The ineffective regulations against gun violence? Politicians saying they care, when in reality, it's just damage control in the name of midterm approval ratings?

It's too early to tell whether or not the Santa Fe students will rise up and join the Parkland students in their plight for gun reform, but one thing is clear: they definitely won't sit around and be overwhelmed by that unsafe feeling in their schools and homes.

For anyone to say that we don't have a gun violence problem within “the Land of the Free” is just ludicrous. Yes, the Constitution grants us the right to bear arms, but nobody ever warns us when someone's going to abuse that power in such an inhumane way. All the moments of silence in the world can't tell us otherwise, because when we're silent, we only give a green light to gun owners who are violent.

Even so, what should be addressed in this case is that unlike Parkland, the perpetrator was part of what most students would say is the "in crowd"— although he was quiet, he was an honor roll student and also a football player, which doesn't exactly fit the stereotypical criteria of a school shooter.

However, claims have been circulating that he was being bullied for quite some time before the assault. Also, he had not only been planning the shooting, but also planned on committing suicide shortly after that, which should have been a red flag to his peers, teachers and coaches. I say so because at my alma mater, Scarborough High School, there was a star wrestler who committed suicide unexpectedly, even though he always tried to have positive influence on others.

As far as I'm concerned, these school shootings are happening on a regular basis because we see it as “the norm” now. This is to the extent that we forget all the warning signs of a potential school shooter (and sometimes the safety procedures), and I don't know what further steps we can take to pay attention to those warning signs, but I think micromanaging every aspect of the students' lives would never help the cause.

The sooner we come up with gun reform laws that can detect students on the verge of a rampage, the sooner we won't have to worry about having the most school shootings in the world.