Rise in Mass Shootings

In recent years, mass shootings in America have risen to almost two per day, but little legislative action has been taken.

Mass shootings can be defined as three or more killings in a single incident.  While mass shootings can happen anywhere, many of them have taken place in schools. This has resulted in an immense amount of fear for students, staff and parents as they attend school daily, never knowing if their names will be the next news headline.

Lori McDonald, parent of one student at Northwest and one at college, shared, “I think schools are taking the measures they can to be as safe as possible. But, no, I think just recent events have shown that there are no places that are safe. I mean, it’s literally scary to go anywhere because it could happen anywhere, at any time, to anybody. I don’t not feel safe sending my kids to school because the school has done everything they can do to make it as safe as possible, but I one hundred percent believe that the Iowa gun laws could be stricter and changed so that I felt more secure sending my child to school.”                                 

Schools have taken many security measures to try to keep students as safe as possible. Examples of this are locked doors, metal detectors, shooting drills, sign-out/hall policies and many, many more. The fact is that no matter how hard schools work to ensure the safety of students, their efforts are futile without legislation also dedicated to protecting the lives of students and people everywhere. The legislation in Iowa and in the U.S. has created a world in which a mass shooting of kindergartners is a common occurrence. It has created a world where children have to practice what to do if an active shooter enters their school. Lastly, it has created a world where most people do not feel safe anywhere at any time due to the omnipresent threat of automatic weapons.  

 The leading cause of death for people under 18 years old in the U.S. is firearms. The firearm mortality rate for children and teenagers in the U.S. is 5.5 times the mortality rate in Canada. This could be due to the difference in gun laws. In Canada, one is allowed to own firearms if the owner completes a registration process, obtains a certificate and then obtains a permit. People who have committed any serious crimes are barred from owning a firearm, as well as anybody with a record of violence or who has received treatment for mental disorders linked to violent behaviors five years prior to applying for a certificate. The laws in Canada also restrict the magazine capacity of handguns to ten rounds, and the magazine capacity of hunting rifles and shotguns to five rounds. Possession of an automatic weapon is prohibited with exceptions for the police or the military. In the state of Iowa, however, the laws are much different. Whether it is for concealed carry or open carry, any person of legal age to purchase a gun may do so without obtaining a permit in Iowa. Iowa has some of the weakest gun laws in America. 

Dr. Ben Kuo, professor of psychology at Windsor University in Canada, commented, “After living in both countries, I do not think Canadians are in any way disadvantaged by not having the second amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms. This gun culture in America is a very unique American issue… most cultures and nations do not condone carrying guns. That’s just not part of human nature. The American way, at least in the constitution, it’s almost like that’s human nature. That’s human entitlement. If that’s not changed, I don’t think much will change, because so much of it is a part of the value system.”

Kuo continued, “I think people are a little bit more desensitized. We get a jolt when we hear about mass shootings… I think with more and more news, not just in Canada but also in the States, you hear it and you say ‘Wow, again?’ and then you don’t have that jolt because there will be another shooting, somewhere, involving kindergarten kids, and the psychology of human experiences is you can tolerate so much. You can’t be constantly feeling that agony and pain, so you put it aside until the next jolt comes.”

Not only has gun violence increased, but with it, Americans’ tolerance of daily massacres. When there is such a high number of shootings that occur so frequently, people start to lose interest in the recurring headlines. This has become an issue because it has allowed space for gun violence to increase without action or laws against it. The fact is, every single day, 12 children die from gun violence and 32 others are shot and injured. Every single day. 

Hannah Hayes, state director of March For Our Lives, a gun control advocacy group, stated, “When there are more mass shootings in America than there are days in the year, these massacres just become old news that happens on the daily… I hope we follow the lead of other nations and pass lifesaving gun legislation, including universal background checks, extreme risk laws, waiting periods, raising the minimum age to buy a gun to 21 and banning both high-capacity magazines and assault rifles. There’s no reason to be arming civilians with military-grade weapons.”

It has proved harmful and deadly for citizens to own military-grade weapons capable of extreme fatalities. Parents of children who have been killed in school shootings often have to identify their children’s bodies by DNA samples because they are so mutilated. After school shootings, the remains of the classrooms are akin to looking as if a bomb went off. Automatic weapons are capable of firing 500-1,000 rounds per minute, killing dozens in an instant. 

The point to be made is that this shooting epidemic is uniquely an American issue. The mindset and entitlement of Americans regarding guns is incomparable to that of other developed nations. If Americans desire to change and create safer environments for future generations, they must first reexamine their values and priorities and change them for the sake of many generations to come.