Xiara Diaz

ENGL 134 Writing and Rhetoric

Dr. Peters

5 December 2019

School shootings in America

How safe do you feel coming to school knowing about all of the school shootings that

have occurred in the past couple of years? Hundreds of lives are taken because of mentally ill,

cold hearted and socially out of place people. Our community is traumatized to even step foot on

school campuses, which is one place where you should feel safe. Poor gun control and internet

related motives in America are also to blame for these senseless acts of violence. School

shootings have become a huge epidemic in the 21st century and have impacted everyone in

America. Acts to help prevent these events from happening have been put in place but they are

not effective. In the end our society is to blame for all of this destruction.

The Second Amendment is the right for people to keep and bear arms. This one

Amendment of the U.S Constitution is something that Americans have been following and stand

proud behind since 1789. Although this Amendment is something that can't be altered or taken

out, we must find a solution to stop letting the wrong people take advantage of it. Guns were

originally made for protection and for hunting and they are now used for the wrong intentions.

Guns are now used with anger and revenge. Gun control laws would decrease the amount of

shootings that happen in America and help keep American schools safe. On the other hand they
would restrict some violence but it would not completely stop these events from occurring. To

say that guns are the only reason mass shootings happen is a broad statement to make, but that's

what it comes down to. Mental illness is another factor for mass shootings and a huge reason

behind why school shootings even happen.

Mass shootings are defined as mass killings where more than three people are killed in

one incident. Most school shootings that happen involve double digit numbers of deaths defining

them as mass shootings. “In total there have been 420 shooting deaths and 550 shooting injuries

in educational institutions since 1840. 61% of the shootings are classified as premeditated events.

19% are classified as spontaneous and 8% are accidental,” (Paradice). Studies show that the

premeditated events are the most lethal because the shooters plan out their attacks for months

and weeks to execute their attacks. “In seven of them (35%), the primary factor is “anger.” In

five of the events (25%) the factor is “mental illness”, in two events (10%) the factor is

“attention”, in two (10%) it is “fight”, in three of them (15%) there is some indication of

“domestic” issues, and one event (5%) was categorized as racially motivated,” (Paradice). Anger

caused by peers pushes the shooter to feel the need to lash out and deal with his problems

through guns. The mental and physical distance between individuals causes behavioral

indifferences. Mental illnesses include disorders that affect your mood, thinking, and behavior.

Shooters that are mentally unstable have difficulty processing situations and can not differ right

from wrong. Conflicts between people in school environments can trigger a shooter's mindset to

act violently as well. Broken homes and families can have a huge influence on the way a shooter

treats and feels towards others. Feeling unwanted, unloved and hopeless, shooters find their
escape by hurting innocent people. Racism towards minorities is another huge motive for

shooters to cause outrage.

In the article, “Global Online Subculture Surrounding School Shootings”, Jenni Raitanen

reveals her study of online ethnographic cases of people who expressed deep interests in school

shootings. She states how people create global online subcultures, which are groups of people

who find the same cultural objects important, in this case school shootings. Social media

accounts, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, of school shootings have created this

subculture. These accounts share re-creations of previous school shootings, give perpetrators

fame for their actions and share methods of how to go through with shootings (Oksanen). Since

the 1999 Columbine shooting, the internet has played a major role in school shootings. Dylan

Klebold and Eris Harris are two names America will never forget. They entered their school and

went around the classrooms shooting at their peers injuring 24 people and killing 13. There

infallible acts on April 20th 1999, is the main reason why so many related school shootings have

happened. They recorded themselves via Youtube talking about their plans for the attack and

why they felt they had to do it. The people infatuated with school shootings describe how they

relate to the perpetrators and they want to follow in their footsteps to get the same amount of

attention (Paton). Not only does social media play a big role in influencing shooters, violent

video games are also to blame. At a young age children are exposed to graphic video games

showing gruesome acts of violence. Guns, knives, shooting, murdering, blood and gore are not

things children should see as they can alter their sense of empathy and compassion for human
life. Games like ​Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, and Call Of Duty ​are just the few games that

show people in a stage of panic and distress and the player has to kill them. These violent

triggering games can give children the wrong understanding of right and wrong and can carry

over to how they see our society (Ferguson).

In conclusion school shootings in America have become the new phenomenon in our

society. Guns, mental illness, anger, confusion, internet and social media are all factors that

create the mayhem. Unfortunately the ban on guns has not been enforced and will probably never

happen because of the Second Amendment and how much Americans love their guns. Stores

have made a huge impact by getting rid of their sales of firearms and ammunition, for example

Walmart stopped selling guns and ammunition after the El Paso mass shooting. Organizations

have also been created to show concern and awareness of the harsh truth of guns and school

shootings. The families of the victims will continue to fight for their love ones rights and to live

on their legacy by trying to enact change. As a student myself school shootings have affected me

in my many ways emotionally and mentally. I have grown up in a world where schools are not

safe and we are not protected from this horrible violence. On top of learning fire and earthquake

drills, students now have to learn active shooter drills and escape routes. I hope that through my

paper I was able to shed light on the tragic issue of school shootings in America and a new

perspective of what needs to be done to prevent it from happening.

 Works Cited:

Cramer CE (2014) Guns on Campus: A History, Academic Questions, 27, pp. 411 -425.

Ferguson, C. J. (2007). Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A

meta-analytic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 12, 470–482

Oksanen, A., Hawdon, J., Räsänen, P. (2014). Glamorizing rampage online: School shootings fan

communities on YouTube. Technology in Society, 39, 55-67.

Paradice, David. (2017). AN ANALYSIS OF US SCHOOL SHOOTING DATA (1840-2015).

Education Vol .138 No.2.

Paton, N. E. (2012). Media participation of school shooters and their fans, navigating between

self-distinction and imitation to achieve individuation. In Muschert, G. W., Sumiala, J. (Eds.),

School shootings, mediatized violence in a global age (pp. 203-229).

 Process Artifacts

1. “Identifying an Issue” activity: This activity that we did as class was very helpful for me

in my process of my paper because it helped me pick which topic was going to be

beneficial for my audience. There are many issues in our world but school shootings

affect our society and my community.

2. Library Research Notebook: This artifact helped me find scholarly peer-reviewed articles

for my paper. I've never been on the Library database before and this notebook helped

figure out how to get the right articles for my research.

3. MLA Citations activity: This artifact helped me correctly cite all of my sources I needed

in the right format. I usually write my sources in APA format so having the activity to

cite sample sources in MLA format really helped me.