Former Vice President of the United States Hubert H. Humphrey once declared, “The road to freedom, here and everywhere, begins in the classroom.” Why the classroom, you may wonder? Because our nation is plagued with the very real problem of school shootings. Students in today’s world constantly have to fear their safety in a place that is meant for education and not terror. This problem of mass school shootings that threatens students’ lives has gone unsolved in our country for decades. Thus, it is of extreme importance to address the question: What is the most effective way to eliminate school shootings in the US?

Many proposals have been considered, but out of these possible responses to this terror, three main focuses arise: gun laws, social learning, and preventive security. Before going into each of these three categories, it is important to define this problem clearly. The K-12 School Shooting Database defines a school shooting as “each and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time of day, or day of the week.” Since 1970, there have been 1,644 school shootings in the United States alone, causing over 500 deaths.

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As shown in this graph, the majority of school shootings occur in K-12 schools and colleges. Take the example of the school shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee, which serves as a reminder of this common, but preventable threat.

This brings us to the first solution to this problem, which is gun laws. As of now, legislators are passing gun laws throughout the United States. However, these laws aren’t at all effective. This includes right-to-carry laws, which allow governments to issue permits to citizens, and in the process, lead to a spike in firearm crimes at schools. There are no restrictions about which types of guns should be sold in the US and no background checks for credibility. We cannot continue on this destructive path. Strengthening the gun law system begins with banning certain guns, specifically high-capacity magazine guns, and semi-automatic rifles, which are used in mass school shootings. These guns are turning killers into killing machines. It is also important to note that background checks would help to identify possible suspects of shootings. In Australia, both of these are tried-and-true methods. All six Australian states enacted sweeping gun laws that banned semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and placed more hurdles between gun owners and guns. In just a few years, the number of school shootings dropped from eleven to zero. Overall, if we could follow in Australia’s footsteps by banning such deadly weapons and implementing credibility measures as a part of gun laws, our world would become a much safer place.

In contrast, the second proposal to eliminate US school shootings is social learning. A recent study examined several cases of school shootings and in nearly every instance, students who committed attacks had already shown signs of mental health disorders and external factors such as abuse. By identifying illnesses and increasing the advice counselors provide to people in schools, the number of school shootings will significantly decrease. The end goal should be to create a safe haven where students can discuss any problems they encounter. Due to this discovery, preventing school shootings with a more emotional approach is an important step to take.

Last but not least is preventive security. This approach entails observing the power of words on online platforms such as social media. Some of the people who are contemplating or planning an act of violence may make online declarations of their intent. In doing so, they leave clues that could help avert school shooting tragedies with the proper understanding. The problem is that currently, these posts are only noticed after a shooting. To solve this, the monitoring should have “a host of products and services, including active shooter insurance and facial recognition technology, that are being marketed to schools amid questions about their value.” More than 100 public school districts in the US have implemented such measures and seen acts of violence being prevented. To summarize, governments and districts can help track hints of violence that can prevent a school shooting before it even happens.

All things considered, enacting the right gun laws would be the most effective way to prevent school shootings. As depicted in the table above, stricter gun laws take a direct stance against gun violence in the nation where it is most prominent. Banning the weapons that cause school shootings in the first place prevents those with violent intentions from getting their hands on dangerous guns. Although social learning and preventive security are good options, they would not be enough to stop other people who do not suffer from the same illnesses or post on social media from obtaining magazines, semi-automatic rifles, and more. We have seen this method prove its worth in Australia. It can and will work again. In essence, to stop the mass school shootings frequently happening in the United States, our country needs to take action by implementing efficient gun laws.

Sources

Beck, K. (2017, October 4). Are Australia’s gun laws the solution for the US? BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35048251.

Cornell, D. G., & Mayer, M. J. (2019, December 8). School shootings could be prevented if we intervened in cases of troubled students. NBCNews.com. http://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/school-shootings-could-be-prevented-if-we-intervened-cases-troubled-ncna1097376.

Gregory, S., & Wilson, C. (2018, March 22). Gun Violence in the U.S.: 6 Real Ways We Can Help Reduce It. Time. https://time.com/5209901/gun-violence-america-reduction.

Keeping Our Schools Safe: A Plan for Preventing Mass Shootings and Ending All Gun Violence in American Schools. Everytown Research & Policy. (2021, April 16). https://everytownresearch.org/report/preventing-gun-violence-in-american-schools.

Leibowitz, A. (2018, September 6). Could Monitoring Students on Social Media Stop the Next School Shooting? (Published 2018). The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/social-media-monitoring-school-shootings.html.

Pros & Cons - ProCon.org. Gun Control. (2020, August 7). https://gun-control.procon.org.

Schwab, K. (2021, June 18). How to tell when social media posts signal a mass shooter in the making. Fast Company. http://www.fastcompany.com/90422442/how-to-tell-when-social-media-posts-signal-a-mass-shooter-in-the-making.

Statistics. ZeroEyes. (2021, March 24). https://zeroeyes.com/statistics.