Every week, an average of 88 children are expelled from American schools for bringing a gun to class.
Every week...
Gun crime atrocities in American schools date back to a 1997 incident, where a sixteen year old boy stabbed his mother before shooting dead two students and injuring many others at his school in Mississippi. A spate of similar incidents have alarmed and confused the world, causing heavy criticism of American law and culture, with very little reward.
Inevitably questions have been asked again and again of the American governments regarding this horrifying statistic and the horrifying repercussions it indisputably contributes to, but apparently to no avail. School shootings, and the underage possession of firearms have continued; only six months ago in Minnesota a schoolboy killed two of his grandparents before murdering nine students and then committing suicide at Red Lake High School, Minnesota.
Are these tragedies merely the results of troubled teens, as politicians defensively claim? If so why are do so many teenagers descend to such levels of depression to commit such heinous crimes? Or is it merely the lack of control and responsibility in American firearm legislation?
The claim that it is the teenagers themselves that are at fault in this spiral of college violence cannot be defended without inquiry into the society in which these teenagers mature, it is the culture that shapes these individuals, alienating, troubling and disaffecting them from normality to induce such actions due to sheer desperation.
The investigations by Michael Moore into the Columbine shootings in 1999, were, although highly controversial, extremely telling about the personalities of the two teenage gunmen. Moore addressed the habits, music taste and characters of the two boys, attempting to find the reasons behind the massacre of twelve students, a teacher and themselves in Colorado.
The two killers, aged 17 and 18, were said to belong to a group called the “trench coat mafia” and were estranged by fellow pupils in the school, cited by many as the reasons behind the shootings. Harris and Klebold (the two gunmen) apparently regularly boasted of their use and possession of firearms, seeing it as an asset rather than a peculiarity, therefore giving strong evidence to suggest these horrors come directly as a result of the “gun culture” in America.
The issue of firearm legislation is one that has been addressed: Al Gore proposed legislation for tougher gun controls soon after the Columbine disaster, but it was thrown out by US Congress. It seems the atrocity will continue to be overlooked by American politicians while the rest of the world watches open-mouthed at the blatant lack of reaction.
This issue is one that affects the world, not just American society and one that must be addressed and attacked. 88 children carrying a firearm to school every day, and those are just the ones that get caught. We cannot let this carry on, whether it is the fault of individuals, parents, society or the laxity of Governmental control, it must be sorted.
Read more:
W.T., Radley College.
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