There have been 18 school shootings in 2018 and it's beginning to look like an epidemic. More people have died from school shootings in the last 18 years than in the entire 20th century. Yet here we sit, waiting for the next one to happen, without many bipartisan solutions to stop the next one. I get that we need to let families grieve and I want you to know this isn't me pushing a political agenda.
I'm simply sick of hearing about dead children and I know that basically everyone is as well, so why can't we come together and do something about it?
This isn't about taking everyone's guns away, revoking the 2nd amendment, a gun registry, background checks or assault weapons bans.
This is about doing something when we find kids struggling with mental illness who seem to be in danger of harming themselves or others. Keep reading to find out about some actual solutions for these tragedies.
School shooters don't care about background checks or weapons bans or age limits.
The Sandy Hook shooter took his mom's legally owned guns and there was a weapon ban in his residential area.
The Columbine shooters had their friend buy guns for them because they weren't old enough to buy any themselves and this shooting occurred during a nationwide Assault Weapons Ban.
The Virginia Tech shooter passed background checks regardless of his personal history. According to one New York Times article,
"Under federal law, the Virginia Tech shooter ...should have been prohibited from purchasing a gun after a Virginia court declared him to be a danger to himself in late 2005 and sent him for psychiatric treatment, a government official and several legal experts said Friday."
Also, the shooter killed 33 people with simple handguns! This is the highest death count for a school shooting in recent US history!
The Parkland shooter? A CNN article found that the Broward County Sheriff's office had "39 calls from Cruz's house over a six-year period."
Some claim that this is because Broward County was following Obama's guidelines that intended to reduce school arrests in an attempt to diminish the effects of the school-to-prision pipeline. A National Review article explains,
"Despite committing a string of arrestable offenses on campus... [the Parkland shooter] was able to escape the attention of law enforcement, pass a background check and purchase the weapon he used to slaughter three staff members and 14 fellow students because of Obama administration efforts to make school discipline more lenient."
The Parkland shooter obtained his guns legally regardless of his history of violence and was able to keep his guns even though people knew of his threatening nature.
Why is nothing done to prevent these situations? A few reasons.
1. We don't want to criminalize children - even when their actions are life-threatening.
2. Background checks have limits; sometimes, the checks don't include specific mental health history checks because this breaks certain patient privacy policy laws.
It's time we put these worries aside. If people have certain types of mental illnesses or violent histories, they should not be legally allowed to obtain guns and should be institutionalized!
I've heard it before, "criminals are already not allowed to legally get guns." Well, guess what, they'll somehow do it anyway because they don't care about laws, and, heck, some have done it legally!
It's time to put our feelings aside and institutionalize those who need to be away from the general public. These individuals should be in a mental facility or a prison or a combination of both for some restorative justice or whatever is deemed fit by a court ruling.
Anecdote: Would you like to know what happens when there are children with "school-shooter" vibes?
While volunteering at a school, I learned that, in such a case where children are exhibiting menacing thoughts or behaviors, the teacher tells the social worker. The social worker then notes this information and may have a conversation with the student. The student sometimes gets some counseling and...the cycle repeats.
If a child comes to school with dismembered animal parts again and again, nothing more than a few conversations occur. This is unacceptable!
No, this doesn't mean we "go after" all of the depressed and anxious kids in our schools.
This means we create plans for the kids who have threatened others with death, who have repeatedly mutilated animals for pleasure, who consistently make gory projects, blogs, or essays about murdering, who have purchased t-shirts saying "Born to Kill" or who have stalked others.
These are some of the warnings and red flags we gloss over and we can't afford for it to happen anymore.
Additionally--parents!--it's time to get real with yourselves! If your child exhibits these violent tendencies, turn them in! As much as it hurts, it could save lives!
The time to talk about solutions is now!
Saying, "Oh, they have a tough home life and are bullied, so we'll just get them some therapy" isn't going to cut it anymore. We need to follow up on red flags and kids who are at risk at endangering themselves or others need to be institutionalized. Only then will we see some change!
