Yet again, another school shooting took place this Thursday at Taft Union High School, once again bringing up the issue of gun control. A sixteen-year-old boy who was bullied by classmates brought a 12- gauge shotgun to a classroom full of 28 kids. The boy opened fire, seriously wounding one student while he shot stray bullets throughout the classroom. The teacher, Ryan Heber, and campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields, bravely confronted the student and convinced him to lower his weapon, while the rest of the students escaped through a back door. It is a miracle that only three people were injured in this incident, considering that the suspect had 20 rounds in his pocket. The gun belonged to the suspect’s brother.
How could something like this happen not even a month after the tragedy in Newton? A school is supposed to be a safe learning environment where students shouldn’t have to worry about violence. It seems that any regular student, or person for that matter, can find a way to wreck havoc on any environment. The armed police officer that was supposed to be at the school wasn’t there at the time because “heavy snowfall” in the area prevented his arrival. The suspect simply walked into school with a concealed weapon, surveillance cameras show that the boy seemed “nervous”, which begs the question, why did no school staff confront the boy upon his arrival? Even though it shouldn’t be so, it seems that extra precautions must be taken when dealing with security, especially when children are involved.
Then there is the whole point of how a sixteen-year-old child should have no accessibility to a 12-gauge shotgun, or any type of firearm. The truth is that incidents like this are going to happen until preventions are taken against firearms. The likelihood of violence in public areas will steadily increase the longer the government waits on implementing laws against weapons.
Vice President Biden has been the head of a group to help reinstate a ban on assault weapons, however the head of the NRA David Keene said “I would say that the likelihood is they will not be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress”. First off, there should be no resistance towards a ban on assault rifles. Second, there is no reason why any one in the United States needs to have a heavy- armed weapon on them. There’s a clear reason why people can’t possess them; people suffering from mental illness, or in this recent incident, someone being bullied, react to their emotions with violence. It’s a simple fact that the more ammo a shooter has, the more lives he or she can take. The question is when will the government realize the connection between death and guns.