The U.S School Shooting Epidemic – How Can It Be Resolved?

School shootings. One of the leading causes of death to students & teachers. The U.S. has had 57 times as many school shootings as all other major industrialized nations combined.

“They put many children’s lives in danger and it creates a non-safe environment for kids,” said Colleen Francois Williams, a junior who attends BASE High School. She expressed her opinions on school shooters and how they have impacted school systems across the country. She also shared what BASE High School could do to prevent a tragic school shooting from happening to the school in the near future: “Make sure students know how to take the lockdown seriously, and actually educating kids to what to do and not what to do, instead of standing in the corner.” Colleen also expressed that she knows there’s a risk of common school shootings within U.S. education, but doesn’t feel endangered.

Each day, 12 children die from gun violence in America, and another 32 are shot and injured, as stated by the Sandy Hook Promise organization. Guns are also a leading cause of death among American children and teens. In a 2022 study, firearms were the leading cause of death for children and teens (ages 1-17) with an average of 7 young people dying every day, and ever since the shooting at Columbine High School in April of 1999 took place, more than 390,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school. In 4 out of 5 school shootings, at least one other person knew of the attacker’s plan but failed to report it, and 93% of school shooters planned their attacks on schools in advance.

Jennifer Lemish, an art teacher at BASE High School, currently has children who are out of school, but worries that her nephews and nieces who are still in school might be part of a school shooting’. The art teacher believes that humans have such intentions to shoot up a school full of children for “notoriety”, describing them as “sick” and “mentally ill” and that “schools are easy targets.” “ I do feel safe in BASE I think, you know, in general, if we were to have a school shooting here, it would be an outsider, not someone who’s part of the school community. But you never know, it could happen. You don’t know who’s going through mental stress. You don’t know who has access to guns,” the teacher responded when asked if she feared a school shooting would occur at BASE High School. She believes that the city of New York has “definitely been working” on preventing school shootings from happening in the school system. “That’s why we have the security guards in the front — that’s why you have to go through specific places of entry. That’s why they have triple arms on all the different doors. I definitely think that they have worked very hard to keep us safe and I trust them.”

We can obviously jump to a final conclusion. School shooting rates have abruptly skyrocketed as the years slowly passed by. Is there anything we could do to resolve this enduring issue? It’s as simple as making sure that mental health support is available for all teenagers. Not even only teenagers, but everyone that resides in the “land of the free”. But let’s say that doesn’t work out. We can totally restrict gun laws so that our children will never be able to touch a firearm until the appropriate time comes. Reports reveal that nearly half of all parents with a weapon in the home wrongly believe their children don’t know where a gun is stored. So what’s the choice? Do nothing about this life-threatening issue, or risk the possibility of our children never making it back home? All because they simply wanted to have an education.