Daily Times

There have been 231 school shootings in the United States since 2010; the latest happened just two days ago when 19-year-old Orlando Harris opened fire at his former high school in St Louis, Missouri and killed a teenager and an adult woman. Police were summoned to the scene soon after and got into a gunfight with Harris after which he was shot dead. Gun laws in Missouri are alarmingly weak. The state does not require background checks before the sale of a firearm and concealed shotguns and rifles may be carried in public without a permit. With one notable exception, where individuals carrying a handgun must first obtain a concealed carry endorsement, Missouri is a notoriously gun-friendly state.

Legislators across the United States have been lobbying for firmer gun control legislation to minimize the frequency of school shootings, some have advocated a “target-hardening” approach to school shootings where security measures such as metal detectors and surveillance cameras are used to protect against further incidents of violence. However, security measures have been known to fall short before; indeed, the surveillance cameras at Columbine did nothing to stop its perpetrators from killing 12 students and injuring another 20, all of which were tragically caught on tape. If anything, the presence of metal detectors and security guards creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity and changes the fundamental relationship between teacher and student where students may be perceived as inherently criminal by their teachers, which disrupts learning and solidifies the school as a site of destruction as opposed to growth. On the other hand, safety is an essential condition for learning and some of these measures, although drastic and clinical, may be necessary.

The dramatic increase in school shootings across the US could also be attributed to high incidences of bullying; it is typically the ostracized who seek to assert their authority by orchestrating a crime of this nature. Most school shootings are committed by current or former students and typically end in suicide, indicating that the perpetrators are deeply troubled and require more specialized attention from their teachers and supervisors. While security measures and gun control laws certainly have their place in any well-rounded strategy for the prevention of such shootings, they are not enough. Legislators must pay closer attention to why these shootings happen; the availability of guns is only a small variable in a much larger equation that enables these crimes to happen. *