School Shootings have desensitized America

On an April morning in 1999, the world changed. Columbine High School endured a school shooting that shocked America. This incident astounded the entire nation and caused a widespread feeling of panic and sorrow. Like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it was such a shocking event that people remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.

Since 2013, there has been 168 school shootings alone in the United States. The incident at Columbine was displayed over the media and nationwide news for several months after. Yet, the most recent 168 school shootings were not all shown over the media nationwide for months on end. These events were plastered for a day or week max then ceased to be mentioned again other than the cities where the events occurred.

With the amount of school shootings over the past couple of years it is assumed school shootings have become in a sense normalized and not a total shock to the public. The threat of violence on campus is a real thing that haunts school administrators. Principal Dan Serrano, who used to teach special education, said “when I first started teaching a shooting at a school was really rare.”

Twenty years later, Serrano then references yet another shooting taking place at Independence High School only forty-three miles away from PHS. This shooting ended in a murder and suicide. Last October, another school shooting took place at Northern Arizona University startling the state of Arizona resulting in three injuries and a death of a student.

“I do think they have become in a sense, normalized,” English teacher Mara Schultz said. “I feel like the only one that is the exception is Sandy Hook, just because the kids were so young.”

Sophomore Ryan Whitmire agreed with Schultz. “I think they have definitely become normalized, but I don’t see a lot done to stop them,” he said. “We just kind of accept them.”

With the numerous shootings taken place there should be substantial efforts put in place to prevent them. Yet, this is not so the case with minimal efforts to change the situation.

Decades ago mass shootings were few to none. Nowadays, Americans have seem to become desensitized towards gun violence and tend not to look twice at mass shootings.

There are several solutions that can be instituted to prevent these school shootings from repeatedly occurring. Stricter gun laws and more in-depth background checks should be set in place to prevent the unreasonable and mentally unstable from owning a firearm. While arming teachers and overall schools would result in a safer atmosphere, but has its own positives and negatives. Shooters are well aware schools are a “gun-free” zone and use that to their advantage. To top it off, there should be stricter school security no matter the current safety of the area. With the realism of school shootings becoming normalized precautions and steps should be taken into preventing this normalization.