How do we stop violence from even starting?
In many school gun violence related incidents, we have missed signs and signals along the way. Most incidents are not spur of the minute but have been planned for at least 6 months. At least 1 person knows about it in advance. Most of those in the know are children, friends of the perpetrator. – not an adult. Parents are not informed nor in many case, nether are educators. We need to recognize the signs, we need to recognize them when they are in place and we need to act by, at the very least, having a safety assessment in place.
What are the causes of school violence?
- America’s gun culture
- Availability of weapons (including in their home). An article in the Wall Street Journal (April 5, 2018) indicated that “about 42% of U.S. adults live in households with a gun.”
- Availability of semi-automatic weapons (using large capacity magazines)
- Lax gun laws in many states
- Legislatures and governors who respond to gun manufacturers and gun lobbies and not to educators, children and parents. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel: Republican Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee signed off on legislation the week before the violence in Knoxville that would make Tennessee the latest state to allow most adults 21 and older to carry handguns – openly or concealed- without first clearing a background check and training. Lee backed the legislation over objections from law enforcement groups who argued that the state’s existing permit system provided an important safeguard for knowing who should or shouldn’t be carrying a gun.
If we can prevent heart attacks, choking, and drownings, then we can prevent school violence.