Why Do We Keep Allowing The School Shootings?
Let me just begin this article by saying I am 100% against any attack on the second amendment. With that being said, I will go ahead and warn you that this article will contain some comments that are not so complimentary against the GOP as well. So, with that being said let’s get into the story.
I recently read an article by CNN that claimed there have been a school shooting every week this year. https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/us/school-shootings-2018-list-trnd/index.html The article goes on to detail each shooting. One was a BB gun where one student shot another. Nine of the shootings on the list are things that occur on college campuses, in dorm rooms, and are possibly the result of gang activity. A few more could be described as accidents. They did include Parkland as well as the recent school shooting in Texas. I would say maybe four or five of their examples are things I would consider actual school shootings that should cause the public to be alarmed.
So why did CNN embellish the article? So, they could say that there has been one school shooting each week. This headline has been spread across Social Media platforms as well as being used as talking points for various news outlets. What does this do? It pulls at people’s heart strings and makes them think that something needs to be done. My question is, wouldn’t the major school shootings not be enough to raise an alarm bell? I mean in the great USA we have had four or five major school shootings. Where a “child” has taken a weapon into a school with the intent of KILLING as many people as they can. Regardless of where your political ideology lies, you have to see that this is a sign of a sickness.
So why is this happening? The left says it’s because guns are too accessible. You can guarantee that after every school shooting, the same Democrats will be in front of the camera somewhere screaming about taking guns. They do their dance of blaming the Republicans and throwing the tragedy at their feet. The left-wing media comes up with talking points (like the CNN article that came out two days after the Texas shooting) then the next week or so will be spent trying to shame everyone into giving up their guns. The GOP immediately goes on the defensive. Right wingers fire back on social media trying to explain to liberals why the 2nd amendment is so important. Everyone yells and screams at each other for a week or so until another news article steals the headline. This dance happens EVERYTIME! The end result is that nothing is ever fixed.
Is there an easy solution to stop this from happening? No there is not. If you read my about me article, you will know I am a social worker. From my own perspective, one way we can start is by looking at mental health. Our mental health programs are over extended and under paid. The workers are pushed to the point where burn-out is pretty much expected from every employee at one time or another. The care provided is minimal at best because of the overwhelming demand and limited resources. If you look at the Parkland situation, you see that there were 27 times that either law enforcement or mental health services could have intervened. Now there are many speculations why no one ever intervened like, the county policy to not prosecute a minor for political purposes (Which make me very angry that this was allowed), or people evaluating and not seeing a threat. The truth is had DSS intervened, the care he would have received would not have been as good as it should have been. A typical mental health solution is to medicate the symptoms and try to band aid their issues while they get through it. The problem is the medications often lead to more issues, and become long term. I’m not going to go off on the horrors of anti-psychotic medication for children (at least not in this post), but just know the issue is there.
Another thing that could help solve the issue is to look at the laws that cause the breakdown of family structures. The past thirty years there has been an assault on the nuclear family dynamic. Whether it is tougher laws on petty crimes that have split families, loss of manufacturing and jobs that broke down the family, drugs, or even media pushing a lack of family values; the impact has been devastating. Families are no longer connected like they used to be. According to a stat from fathers.com “57.6% of black children, 31.2% of Hispanic children, and 20.7% of white children are living absent their biological fathers.” The site goes on to point out the followings stats: · “63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average. · 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average. · 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control) · 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26) · 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)” https://thefatherlessgeneration.wordpress.com/statistics/
We could also look at a number of other issues, like violence in the main stream media, declining morals, and a nation of entitlement, but this article has drug on long enough. The point is that nothing is being done about any of it. Our nation is under attack and the attacks are coming from within. We have allowed our children to be over medicated and over stimulated to the point where they are like a tea kettle about to explode.
If CNN is right, then we will have a mass shooting again next week. I don’t think they are, but I can guarantee there will be another one. Most likely, we do the same dance we always do. My wish is for just once that we can stop for a second and ask: WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING? I know the democrats have gone into ludicrous mode, and will attack anything they can to blame Trump. We Republicans need to be the voice of reason. Instead of going on the defensive about our 2nd amendment (Which Trump assured was completely safe) maybe we could be the voice of reason that begins to look at what policies can we enact or remove, and just maybe we can stop our schools from becoming killing grounds. Maybe we can let our kids enjoy the kind of childhood that we all did growing up.