Hafidz Arrazy

16 March 2018
Ms. Luna

Guns Are Not Toys

School shootings in America have increased tremendously since the incident that
occurred at Columbine High School in 1999. Making the United States with the most school
shootings crime committed compared to any other countries. Schools are supposed to be the
second most safest place after home for students, well at least that’s I believe what most
parents think, and us; students. So why does this terrible act happen quite frequent in this
country? Why not in other countries?

According to ABC news, “​Columbine Shootings' Grim Legacy: More Than 50 School
Attacks, Plots,” by By Pierre Thomas, Mike Levine, Jack Cloherty, Jack Date. ​There are more
than 50 school attacks inspired by the Columbine Shooting. One of the attacks’ perpetrator was
Adam Lanza, he was responsible for the death of 20 children between the age of six and seven
years old. The incident occured in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Adam had been diagnosed
with Asperger’s syndrome which is a​ developmental disorder affecting ability to effectively
socialize and communicate, followed with autism spectrum disorder, obsessive-compulsive
disorder and severe anxiety. Most of the perpetrators of school shootings were diagnosed with
mental disability/illness. The most recent incident of school shooting occurred in Stoneman
Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida which happened in February 14 2018. The suspected
shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Jacob Cruz, a former student of the Stoneman Douglas High
School. He was expelled years before he decided to shoot up the school and yet mental
disability was blamed over the terrible act he did. This shows how mental disabilities are one of
the main factors for these people to decide to went on a rampage. However, mental disabilities
have been abusively used by some of these school shooting perpetrators in a way to avoid to
put behind bars.

The average of school shootings perpetrators are range between the age of 15 years
old to 19 years old. According to everytownresearch.org, ​Analysis of School Shootings,
“Between 2013 and 2015, an average of two school shootings took place at K-12 schools each
month. Among shootings at K-12 schools in which the age of the shooter was known, 56
percent (39 of 70) were perpetrated by minors.” This is more than a half of people that
committed the crime are and under 18. This also shows how easy for the minors to obtain guns.
This article also states, “​Many of the students who perpetrated these shootings had easy
access to guns at home. In some cases investigators declined to comment on the source of the
firearm because the incidents were under active investigation, but in the 24 incidents where the
source of the firearm could be determined, 13 of the shooters (54 percent) used a gun they
obtained from home. This is consistent with an analysis of school-associated violent deaths
between 1992-99 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that 56
percent of students involved directly in a school-associated homicide or suicide used a firearm,
and of those guns for which the source could be determined, 79 percent were obtained from the
shooter’s home or that of a friend or relative.” These numbers also show how easy it is for the
minors to obtain guns, and most of the guns were obtained from home.

Everything is preventable, so is school shooting. The least we could do is to report any

suspicious acts. Especially social media, nowadays, most teenagers use social media to
express themselves, in a good or a bad way. After the incident that happened in Parkland, FL,
people found the perpetrator’s (Nikolas Cruz) instagram. Sure enough, in his instagram page
there’s a lot of pictures of him with guns. Now, I understand people might say, well people that
are into guns does the same thing too, yes I agree but there’s differences with normal people
that are into guns and a killer. In Cruz’s instagram page, he would pose with his gun pointing at
the camera followed with a threatening caption/racial slurs. Also reporting bullying is also
helpful, an article from counseling.org ​Article 90​ states, ”The Safe Schools Initiative Report also
suggested that 71% of the attackers were victims of bullying and 10% of the attackers who were
receiving treatment for their diagnosed mental illness failed to comply to take their prescribed
psychiatric medications. In regards to bullying, 87% of school shooting perpetrators left behind
evidence that they were victims of severe bullying. According to Chung (2012), in addition to
many perpetrators dealing with symptoms of depression, several assailants struggled with
narcissistic tendencies, rage, and tended to rely upon the psychological strategy of splitting
(having extreme ways of thinking). Splitting can be seen in certain personality disorders and can
even contribute to rationalizing homicide (Chung, 2012)”. This shows of much bullying does
affect these perpetrators.
 Fundamentally, schools were created to be safe for students.Therefore, these are my
opinions about why does this incident could happen, and how we can prevent this. Moreover,
school counselors are in the unique position to help students to deal with their anger issues and
use proactive measures to help them with their pain and work to prevent them from harming
themselves, and especially others.