The Importance Of Controling Gun Violence In Schools

Controlling Gun Violence in Schools

Every thirty minutes there is a youth death involving guns. In eighty percent of school-related deaths, the weapons used were obtained easily from someone the perpetrator knew (Reza et al., 2003). Though only about one percent of all of these deaths happen at school (Robers, Zhang, & Truman, 2012), this is still an astoundingly high number, which needs to be drastically decreased. To stop gun violence by youth in schools, the government, parents and adults in general must focus on: legality, availability, and knowledge of guns, watching for signs of severe bullying and harassment which lead to violence, and decreasing violence in media, making the value of a human life greater.

The government has a large say on what occurs in a country. Though laws in Canada are strict about possession of guns, the laws in the Unites States of America are very slack and need to be changed. To lessen the amount of shootings, the government needs to keep guns out of the hands of people who have no real need for them. The boldest and most clean-cut way to solve this problem would be to change the constitution to deny the general public the right to bear arms (Stevens, 2014). This may be the best way to end gun violence, however it is unlikely that a massive constitutional change such as this will come into effect hastily. So instead of working with the past we can work to create new laws for the future. One way to make sure that fewer guns are put into the hands of civilians is background checks. Some states have already implemented background checks, which make it so that anyone with a mental illness, restraining order, or small crimes can not purchase guns (Sen & Panjamapirom, 2012). The homicide rates in those s...

... middle of paper ...

...es the deaths of many children, and is something that can be controlled. With help from the government cracking down on gun laws, and enforcing educational seminars about gun violence, we can stop children from easily obtaining guns and using them in acts of violence. Revenge because of bullying is a leading motive to many violent crimes, and to stop this we need to create a stigma around bullying and enforce it with severe consequences. Lastly all types of media that are accessible by children need to be kept violence free. Gun violence in schools is something that needs to be ended and this can only happen if everyone comes together and works to keep the safety of children paramount. By doing so we can ensure that the daily news covers how the rate of school shootings is decreasing rather than the names of the ever-growing list of youth killed by gun violence.