A Shot In The Dark: Searching For A Silver Bullet Solution To Ending Gun Violence In America

On Wednesday, February 14th, a shooting at a Florida high school rocked the United States and devastated families across the nation. 17 individuals lost their lives in the bloody attack that has sparked a global movement to tackle the issue of gun violence in the United States.

News stories across the globe reported on terror, heroism, murder, and heartbreak. Suspect Nikolas Cruz now faces 17 counts of premeditated murder, though a lifetime in prison will not bring back those who lost their lives on that tragic afternoon.

The chilling event that unfolded in Parkland is not the only one of its kind. On October 1st, 2017, 59 people were killed and 441 injured during a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada. In fact, November 5th saw the death of 27 people after a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Stories of mass shootings have become more frequent in the past decades and opinions clash on whether the right to bear Arms in the United States should be reconsidered. The right is stated in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and reads as follows:

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Columbine High School in 1999, Virginia Tech in 2007, Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012  are few examples of school shootings that have prompted Americans to join the discussion to make changes to the Constitution. Unfortunately, the fate of the United States is in the hands of those who benefit from the current status of the Second Amendment.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a civil rights organization which proudly defends the Second Amendment. The NRA receives funding from gun industry sources in the form of donations, grants, royalty income, and advertising. The NRA generously donates to politicians such as President Trump and in modern American politics, money equals power. The NRA argues that assault-weapons bans “don’t’ stop criminals from getting their hands on a gun.”

The NRA is essentially looking into the eyes of parents who have lost their children in a school shooting and saying, “There is nothing that can be done.”

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy says that the blood of the victims is on the hands of those who refuse to take action and create positive change.

“This happens nowhere else other than the United States of America, this epidemic of mass slaughter, this scourge of school shooting after a school shooting,”

“It only happens here — not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of our inaction. We are responsible for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere else.”

Crunching The Numbers

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland marks 37th mass shooting of the calendar year in the United States.

A report published by the New York Times reveals that since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, more than 400 people have been shot in over 200 school shootings. The report uses data from the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization which collects and publishes information and statistics on gun-related violence in the United States. The organization began tracking school shootings in 2014.

The Gun Violence Archive classifies a school shooting as an episode on the property of an elementary school, secondary school, or college campus that occurs during school hours or extracurricular activities. The data only includes episodes during which people were killed or injured by gunfire.

A study was done in 2000 estimated that more than 22 million children in the United States are living in a home with a firearm.

While statistics vary between states, one conclusion remains constant: the current status of the Second Amendment needs to be changed.

A Call to Action

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is calling for stricter gun laws to be implemented within the United States. In a tweet following the Parkland shooting Giffords stated:

“Every day we fail to take action, we choose this fate. We tolerate politicians who fail to acknowledge this crisis and vote against our safety. We let our gun violence epidemic continue day after deadly day.”

Attempts are being made to limit the number of gun-related deaths in the U.S. through these attempts are more reactive than preventative.

Following the Las Vegas shooting in 2016, commercials advertising bullet-proof winter jackets were released. While some thought these advertisements to be a satirical example of the way in which many Americans see the issue of gun violence, these products are being manufactured and distributed nationwide. Another extreme approach to combating gun violence in the United States has a number of Americans enraged and questioning the safety of their country.

President Trump was heavily scrutinized after suggesting that in order to “prevent” mass shootings from taking place, teachers and school staff should be armed with weapons.

While there are individuals who support Trump’s idea of arming teachers, the parents of children killed in school shootings feel as though their loss has become a grounds for politicians such as trump to generate support.

The suggestion is a crude paradox that seems ineffective to anyone who has read a newspaper in the past year. Innocent children are being killed in shootings and Trump wishes to put guns in the hands of even more Americans, quite literally fighting violence with violence.

I spoke with an elementary school teacher from Washington state who provided a deeper look into the problem with the current method of taking a reactive approach to gun violence.  She presented the following example:

In the event of an emergency lockdown, teachers are instructed to have students sit away from any windows or doors and keep silent. All the lights in the classroom are to be turned off, the door is to remain locked until a clear instruction to evacuate is given.

The rules seem straightforward: keep quiet and don’t open the door for anyone.

You are a third-grade teacher who has just learned that there is a shooter in the school where you teach. You have prepared the children in your class for an event such as this though you so desperately wished that this day would never come. You close and lock the classroom door and calmly instruct the children to silently sit on the floor in the far corner of the room.

As you wipe the tears from a number of children’s eyes, you hear a faint knocking on the door. You wait, frozen, thinking the worst. After a few sterile seconds of silence, more knocking can be heard, this time more frantic. You hear the voice of a child who was in the bathroom when the lockdown was first announced. The child tries the door handle multiple times with no luck and begs to be let in.

You have two options.

Option one: Let that child into the room and risk exposing your location to the shooter, resulting in the death of thirty children.

Option two: Remain silent and hope that the child is able to find someplace else to hide.

Do you risk the lives of thirty children to save the one child in the hall or do you save the lives of thirty children and risk the life of that one child? No matter which option you choose, there will be blood on your hands.

No early childhood educator should ever have to be faced with moral dilemmas that require one to assess the worth of the lives of children.

How many will more innocent children die before a preventative approach to gun violence is taken?

How many will more politicians benefit from the manufacturing and distribution of the weapons that cause such distress?

How long must we wait to see a nation at peace?

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