SCHOOL, SAFELY?

School shootings, is it an effect for what we caused?

Have you ever wondered what was going on in the mind of a school shooter, probably not, but you’d be surprised with how much they think like a regular person they even might think like how you do, how everyone does but what exactly causes this student to be a threat? Now i know i caused quite a commotion with the first question, However i do have an explanation, you see after covid, everyone was back to working and attending school, however things became very different, even though things were becoming more normal, more and more students around the world can feel pressured and bullied at school more often than they did during covid.

Now that everything is cleared up, let's start talking about the reasons for the school shootings. Abuse at home, kids can develop several traumas and harm inflicting behaviours if nothing is being done about a situation they know is wrong, this might include harming other students, trouble trusting other people, mental illnesses and insanity, these emotions might cause lack of focus and more anger towards the people around them. Another reason is bullying, we all know that it is often the student who deals with it when teachers refuse to, however when a student knows that there is no one to help them or support them in this situation, they often have vengeful and bad intentions, such as killing or harming the bully. Undiagnosed mental illnesses or disorders can cause school shootings as well, considering that a student with them could be treated differently than others, or they could even have horrible thoughts on others even though that particular person never did anything bad. Influenced behaviour, peer pressure can have huge effects on us, even though any mature person will tell you not to commit to peer pressure, however you would be surprised with how many people fall into it because a close friend or family member told them to, however in a school situation it could be a close friend or someone you became friends with, violent or strange behavior, might be supported in you by that particular “friend”, as a result you might act more violent, and threatening towards others, probably leading to a school shooting. Even though those are not all the reasons for school shootings they come pretty close.

History of school shooting, school shooting date way back to the 1891, even though the shooters were most likely adults and people outside the schools, some were students aiming to get revenge on teacher for a specific reason, such as corporal punishments, however in later shootings, they were mostly caused by personal reasons, such as relationships, revenge, and other causes, however, now in 2021 school shooting all over the globe, with handfuls of students being trialed as adults in court, however i believe that bullying should be illegal to considering that it can be assault, physical assault and abuse, I would also like to support people to report bullying to the school before you take legal action, because if you report it at school more than once with the evidence that you HAVE reported bullying, you can take it to court and report it for legal action of the school or the bully

Now let's start talking about what it is like to be a victim of these school shootings, just imagine you are in class, usual right? But there is a sudden announcement “this is a hard lock down, this is not a drill, i repeat this is not a drill” suddenly the teacher turns off the lights, closes the curtains, locks the door and tells everyone to get to the back corner, everyone is silent but you could tell everyone is freaking out, you wait and wait to no avail, some kids are now crying, you don’t want to freak out even though your heart is pounding to everything you hear, you then grab your phone and quickly text to the ones you love and check the time out of curiosity, you can hear sudden sirens in the distance and footsteps your heart is pounding out of you chest with every possible thought running through your mind, what if they get in? What if the footsteps are the shooter? What if he breaks the lock and gets in? Did the police enter the building yet? All of the sudden the footsteps start to run they move the door knob eagerly, to no avail you hear the footsteps of running disappearing, minutes go by but it feels like hours you hear sudden loud commotion then nothing for a long while, all of the sudden you hear an announcement “ the shooter has been put into police custody, remain in you classroom until the police reach your room and give you the permission to go, we shall start calling parents and dismissing buses to go early” a large amount of minutes go by you hear multiple voices coming towards the classroom, sudden knocking and a male voice saying “police, is anyone in this room?” your teacher carefully opens the door to make sure there police and sure enough they are, they all ask us if we are okay, to which most of us nod and reply yes, they allow us to exit the classroom but on the way out i ask one of them “hey, did you by any chance attempt to get in our classroom earlier to make sure we are okay?” to which one of the police replies “no we had to make sure the shooter or shooters were in our custody first before allowing the students to be allowed out of their classroom for obvious safety reasons” a sudden chill runs down your spine as you figure out what to say, but the only thing that comes out of your mouth is “oh….um okay” you walk out of the school to be greeted by the bright sunlight and you wait to be picked up by someone you wait and wait then a familiar car pulls up to pick you up, hopefully this example is a school shooter scenario considering I wanted to make this example as realistic as possible without it being that violent 

Now what about a shooter example, you were being bullied all day by what was a annoying group of older kids, you then return home after walking for what seemed like forever, when you open the door you are suddenly surprised by the quietness of the house no screaming no arguing nothing you thought, when you enter the house and place your bag somewhere you hear the sudden voice of a relative “remember to take the trash out and to do the dishes” to which you mumbled “ well i’m HAPPY TO SEE YOU TOO” “ what was that” said the relative “ oh nothing, where are the other relatives in the house” you ask in curiosity “oh gone to a restaurant for the day, i just stayed to make sure you came home” “do you feel like its more quiet with less people around?” i asked the relative “ meh, more or less the same to me” the relative than went to another room to do something else, you lied down on the couch, and looked at the ceiling, “ here i feel lonely, at school i feel lonely, wherever i go i feel lonely, and it’s all thanks to them” you had a sudden flashback to the bullies faces “ i want them dead, all of them, all the other students never helped me, my family never helped, nether did the teachers” you smile at the imagination of the bullies begging you for mercy and everyone else doing so, you know the simple solution to this, you know there's no turning back when you give in to the intention “nah” you say to the thought of shooting up the school just then a call on your phone appeared it’s one of the relatives that went to the restaurant without you, you want to hang up however you pick up the phone considering the whole ‘i know it's rude to hang up on someone you know’ situation you reluctantly pick up to hear your relative say “ hello hello, ah yes it’s you” you roll your eyes at this wonderful statement, anyway the relative continues “anyway can you do me a super awesome favor and water the plants” before you can reply the relative hangs up! You feel anger and frustration at everything but without thinking you grab a weapon and force it in your backpack thinking “it will be better this way, no more bullying is the one solution to many of my problems”, hopefully this was an ideal description of what a school shooter might think when committing a horrible action.

Even though there are multiple different solutions to school shootings, i feel like i should go through the solutions by looking at a problem, first is mental health, you see a person's mentality state is no joke when they often have violent or sudden changes in their mood, in case you suspect this is happening to a person near you tell a trusted mature adult to do something, but for some reason you cannot tell a adult i suggest approaching the person in a good time to ask if there okay or if they need to talk about somethings, if they say something that worries you advise them to get some help with things such as therapeutic treatment, however if you suspect something is happening in a students home, i suggest you ask them what's going on and if there ok, if you are positive something bad is happening in their home, i suggest contacting CPS for clarification of their home situation, if you believe that bullying is the main problem, go to the staff and alert them immediately if they don’t do anything, find evidence of the bullying and the school doing nothing and report it for legal action. There are many different solutions to prevent a student becoming a possible threat, so I suggest taking action before they start it!