ANOTHER MASSACRE IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS

Feb 20, 2018 Editorial, Features / Columnists

In the United States, mass killings in schools and other public places have become a common phenomenon, and while Americans mourn, many have come to grips with the reality that mass shootings have become a routine matter.
The deadly gun rampage in Parkland, Florida, about 50 miles north of Miami, which claimed the lives of 14 students and three adults is the worst mass high school shooting so far in 2018 and the deadliest in recent US history. Several of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history have taken place in schools.
The Parkland High School mass shooting on Valentine’s Day is the 18^thof the year which is more than twice the seven school shootings for the same period in 2017 and the authorities seem powerless to prevent them.
In eight of the 18 school shooting incidents this year, no one was injured.The stunning number underscores how common gun violence and mass shootings have become in American schools. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, students in most elementary and secondary schools have regularly been performing drills on how to react in an active shooter situation.
Since January 2013, there have been at least 291 school shootings that claimed more than 500 lives. The worst elementary school massacre in the history of the United States occurred on December 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza killed 20 schoolchildren, all toddlers between the ages of six and 10 years old and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
The nation was stunned and even though there have been calls for stricter laws on gun sales and ownership after this tragedy, gun rights advocates including the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), have succeeded in stifling those calls. Indeed, laws on carrying guns in public places are less strict today.
Americans have become weary of living with the reality of mass school shootings for the past 25 years. During that time, educators across the country have hardened schools’ defences with bullet-proof entrances, active shooter training and a host of desperate and creative safety measures from door jamming devices to scanners for children’s school bags.
Still the shootings continue with no real solutions in sight.
The shootings at Parkland, Florida, came three weeks after a 15-year-old boy shot and killed two students and wounded several others at a Kentucky high school on January 23, 2018. The day before, a teenager shot and wounded a student in a school cafeteria in Texas. The same day, a bullet grazed a 14-year-old boy in the parking lot of a New Orleans high school. Shootings at schools have also taken place in California, Iowa and Washington State, among others. The frequency of school shootings has once again raised the issue among politicians of stricter laws to control the sales of guns in the United States.
Although President Trump has sent condolences to the families in Florida, and has ordered all American flags on public buildings to be flown at half-staff, his remarks that no child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school is hypocritical. His administration and party have and continue to resist calls for stricter gun control laws. It seems that the US Congress which is controlled by the Republicans is fundamentally broken when it comes to amend the Second Amendment which protects gun ownership.
Congress has not acted even after 20 toddlers and six educators were massacred in 2012 in Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. In fact, Congress has blocked several measures to have background checks required for gun purchases, which means that the chances of a child being the victim of a school shooting is extremely high.
Today, children are less safe in schools than in their communities.

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ANOTHER MASSACRE IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS

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