The Issue of Mass Shooting in United States

Throughout the decades, constant series of mass shootings occurring in the United States have been rampant, widespread, and continue to increase as times moves on. There have been numerous of causes derived from the results of these tragedies of some which include mental illnesses, hate crimes, bullying, gun violence, access to firearms and other aggressive actions.

To start off, a mass shooting is the killing of four or more victims by one or a few assailants within a single event. Statistics have revealed that there have been over two thousand mass shootings in the United States alone making it the only country with the mass shootings in the world. Aggressive actions like this must never be overlooked but given some precautionary measures and solutions to prevent this from losing more precious lives. In this essay, I elaborate on the root causes of this aggravating problem and use a real-life situation from the Florida shooting to elaborate on some precautionary measures to prevent such an event, and lastly strong solutions to curtail this issue.

To begin with on the causes of this issue, in the aftermath of mass shootings, that is after the gunman is arrested and sent to trial, these culprits are mostly evaluated by psychologists and are usually diagnosed with mental illness. Mental illness plays a major critical role when it comes to gun violence. Some of the early signs these gunmen show is alienation, disaffection, depression, hostility and amongst others, towards their friends and loved ones. They begin to limit their contact with any close person they know and isolate themselves to prepare the execution of their plan. Bullying also plays a major role in the shooter’s life. Most of the teen shooters are picked on, bullied, and treated as outcasts during their years in school. Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old who is known for killing 22 people and injuring others at the Walmart in El Paso, Texas was known by his peers as an extreme loner, alienating himself from anyone he knew. This could have paved a pathway for seeking vengeance towards his peers using gun violence. At a young age, individuals who are exposed to weapons and have the ability to access them, have the probability of causing violence. However, not all shooters are bullied during their childhood. Actually, some have healthy relationships with their peers and family members, showing no signs of depression or alienation. In 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, two teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold conducted the worst high school shooting at Columbine High School killing 13 people wounding more than 20 others. These teenagers for example showed no signs of hatred or retaliation of vengeance towards their peers before the massacre.

As the causes of this aggravating issue has been well elaborated with measures to possibly prevent a situation like the Florida shooting, it will be good to educate people on the methods or ways to prevent such events in the future which is elaborated below. On February 14, 2018, a 19-year-old named Nikolas Cruz was responsible for the killing of 17 students and staff at the Stoneman Douglas High School. There were series of early warning signs from Cruz which could have been prevented prior the massacre.

To begin with, over the past few years, there had been over 20 phone calls made to the Broward County Sheriff’s office for service concerning Cruz and his brother, yet those phone calls were overlooked and ignored. Cruz was known to be troublesome among his classmates and was even expelled for disciplinary reasons from Stoneman Douglas high school. In addition to this, in 2017, Cruz posted a disturbing comment on a YouTube channel saying, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter” which is a solid evidence to track a person behind this statement down before a serious incident occurs, but the FBI could not identify the person behind this comment. Furthermore, Cruz being smart blended with other students in the morning as they rushed into doorways with ammunition in his backpack. After some time, guns were fired and killed many students.

With this little background information narrated above, some precautionary measures may have been taken into place to prevent such tragedy. For instance, the Sherriff receiving many calls from people about this Cruz countless times should have never be ignored. This might have been done because it was the same complaint repeatedly but overlooked the fact that it was the same kid being complained about. Also, the FBI never sent warnings about this threat seen on YouTube due to their secretive nature. It is understandable that some FBI procedures must be secretive but a threat of shooting people in a school should be let out for the public to know for schools to tighten up their securities or have metal detectors at doors to identify ammunition, and strictly try to identify every student in the respective school. Sounds very tedious, but it is worth it to prevent the loss of parent’s future leaders.

There are countless of procedures and methods which could be put into action to prevent these gruesome mass shootings. Local authorities, and law enforcement officials must be watchful and vigilant in targeting noticeable threatening behaviors from disturbed individuals who usually place their focus on prominent public figures, educational institutions, workplaces and other social gatherings. Threats on social media for example, count as obvious actions towards their plan of executing their violence. These shooters are commonly known for posting videos of themselves displaying their weapons and shooting countless rounds of ammunition at objects for entertainment. Teen shooters have also been known for sending threatening messages to their friends and schools and even go a mile of posting it on their ‘snapchat stories’ about their intentions of shooting up a place lots of people gather which is most at times schools. Individuals must take action to report these behaviors to the authorities as soon as possible even if the person’s threat was unintentional or served as a prank. Background checks should be strictly enforced on individuals who intend on purchasing guns. There could be people with severe mental illnesses such as PTSD, who have the ability to purchase an assault weapon with the intention of using it for harm. A person who has gone through a traumatic event due to the exposure to gun violence at a very early age is more capable in causing harm once he or she possesses a gun. Stricter gun laws and higher age limits should be set and enforced based on the violent rate of each state.

With this said, even though the country has had problems in controlling gun violence for decades, people still need the means of protecting themselves from harm. So, as a solution to this solution, age limits should be set in place in regard to the crime or violence rates in each state, so citizens still have the ability for a self-defense attack.

References

1. Hollister, B. A., & Scalora, M. J. (n.d.). Broadening campus threat assessment beyond mass shootings. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178915000907
2. Khazan, O. (2019). Why Many Mass Shooters Are ‘Loners’. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/el-paso-shooting-when-loneliness-leads-mass-murder/595498/ [Accessed 3 Dec. 2019].
3. Segarra, L. M., Reilly, K., Meixler, E., & Calfas, J. (2018, February 14). Sheriffs Had Received
4. About 20 Calls Regarding Shooting Suspect. Retrieved from https://time.com/5158678/what-to
5. know-about-the-active-shooter-situation-at-florida-high-school/ [Accessed 3 Dec. 2019].
6. Shamus, K. J. (2019, August 10). Trump said 'mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger' in mass shootings. Experts beg to differ. Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2019/08/10/mass-shootings-not-caused-mental-illness-experts/1964731001/.