How Does Gun Violence and Regulations Affect Students at Tahoma and In America
June 11, 2018
Run, hide, fight. The phrase can be seen on many classroom walls. Unfortunately, it is a phrase that all too many students are aware of.
The phrase has become a slogan to help students know how to act when an intruder has infiltrated their school. In recent years students are becoming upset that they have to think about such things. When I attended the walkout on March fourteenth for Tahoma News, part of — one of the organizers of the walkout stated, “we should not have to worry about these things in a place that we should be learning in.”
Students from Parkland Florida are still going on national television to express their opinion. And on March 24, 2018, at the March For our Lives, Emma Gonzalez gave a powerful speech. She wanted adults, students, legislators, anyone who was willing to listen to know what it was like to sit in a classroom in uncomfortable silence for the length of time the Parkland shooter was active, six minutes and twenty seconds. That was how long it took Nicholas Cruz to kill seventeen people at his alma mater. Emma’s speech caught the attention of many and went viral as people sat uncomfortably for the duration of the speech, while tears ran down her cheeks and she never moved.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_RB_3Oqk7c
Sadly we live in a time that we must worry about one of our peers, a former student, an enraged parent, or a random stranger deciding to come to school with a plan to kill. Freshman Rachel Koepher said, “I don’t feel safe at school, not necessarily because of the district or our specific situation, but just because of an overall unknown.” The unknown element is also something that many students are familiar with. There have been thirty-four more mass shootings in America after the Parkland, Florida shooting. Most of these took place outside restaurants or nightclubs at night, usually in the culprit’s hometown. The fact of the matter is that any one of these could have been at a school.
Rachel continued saying “I don’t think that what should be considered the proper regulations are being put on this issue, and I think that more could be done to ensure safety in our school systems.”
Students are told often to say something if you see something, and it is true, that is the best way to avoid the horrible tragedies that too many people are facing. Many students in parkland have said that they were not surprised by who it was that shot the people at their school. He had shown many signs of being unstable and at the very least capable of hurting others, and had even brought his guns to school before. Students here at Tahoma, need to be sure that they are aware of the signs and who may be a danger to them and others.
Psychology Today, in an article listed some of the warning signs of a potential school shooter. They include:
- no remorse
- act violently
- history of social, emotional & mental disturbances
- obsessed with weapons
- lack of ethics.
Mass shooters, and especially school shooters have a pattern where they have multiple of these characteristics. It may be cliche and exhausted idea, but students at Tahoma, and in the rest of America need to watch for these signs. But not only watch, if you see something, report it. It is much better to have your friend or a stranger upset at you, then to have that friend or a classmate die by the hands of someone that could have been prevented from committing the act in the first place.
I wrote this article a while ago and while I was in the process of polishing it to make it ok to publish something happened. This morning at around 7:30, 10:40 in PST, another school shooting occurred. The perpetrator was named Dimitrios Pagourtzis, age 17, who had planned to kill his peers and then himself, along with a second student, who have both been detained. Unlike the profile warning signs that I had previously mentioned in this article, the suspect showed very few of these signs. According to CNN, a Galveston County judge said: “What was briefed to the governor and me was that there were really no warning signs.” They were so subtle that people missed them. Ten people have been killed as a result of Pagourtzis’ actions, and ten others were wounded. Pagourtzis, according to the official court documents sparred the people at the school whom he liked. The police on the scene also found explosive devices including pipe bombs and pressure cookers. Students who were on the scene said that the fire alarm was pulled and while they were evacuating the school they heard 3-4 gunshots and loud explosions. The governor and other officials have gathered lawmakers to try to change the security and the regulations surrounding school shootings.