School Shooting Research Paper

Current methods to decrease the number of school shootings include gun control, easier access to mental health, and higher security. All of these options have merit, but fail to tackle the fundamental cause of these incidents. Gun control is a slow process because of the second amendment: the right to bear arms. Gun activist argue that it is against their rights to take guns away because they should be allowed to protect themselves. In contrast, gun control supporters suggest bans on automatic weapons and rifles since they are weapons used to kill rather than to hunt or protect. Victims from the most recent shooting in Parkland, Florida argue that the shooter, “wouldn’t have harmed that many students with a knife” (Stewart, 2018) The two sides continually go back and forth leaving no future in sight for an agreement. Even if a compromise is made, gun control is unlikely to be a permanent fix because criminals will find ways to get automatic weapons similar to when there was a prohibition on alcohol. …show more content…
Supporters believe this will help narrow out at-risk individuals and prevent them from orchestrating public attacks while others find this to be an invasion of privacy. There are already mental health screening tests in place to prevent troubled individuals from purchasing a gun, but they could likely be strengthened. Although allowing the public to view mental health records may help prevent a small percentage of school shootings, it doesn't account for students like Aaron Ybarra who showed no signs of mental illness until he snapped. On top of that, there is always the possibility that the issue worsens because of the public's knowledge. This could causing a massacre to happen even though it wouldn’t have if the records weren’t