Mass Shootings at Schools

...

Mass shootings in schools does not only result in mental health problems, it also often results in emotional health problems. One emotional health problem that can occur to people involved in a mass shooting in school is alexithymia. Alexithymia is having a difficult time expressing emotion (National Center for PTSD). The same study completed by the National Center of PTSD says that people involved in mass shootings can also develop alexithymia. People in the building at the time of the shooting may not be able to talk about what happened that day. There not necessary scared about discussing it, they just can’t discuss it. Some will have a hard time making friends again because they’re afraid to talk to other people or there afraid to get close to someone cause there afraid the same thing will happen again. Some may even feel guilty because they survived and others that they knew did not. The study done by the National Center of PTSD also showed that the shooting that occurred at an elementary school showed children had guilt feelings for the other children that were killed. They did this study fourteen months after the shooting took place and interviewed one hundred children. Children were still feeling guilty after a year went by. These feelings of grief may never go away. Some children don’t even know how to process grief because there so young. The parents that lost a child in a school shooting also goes through grief. Some parents end up getting a divorce because they can’t take the lost. Not only the people in the building at the time of school shooting is affected, other family members that live by the school are too. The people that live by the school may think that there living and raising their kids in a bad neighborhood. They may not want their kids to go there when there older because they’re afraid it will happen again. The school shootings affect the whole neighborhood, not just the people involved. People’s lives are ruined because of somebody shooting up a school full of children. These emotional health problems that people go through after a school shootings are terrible and something must be done so people don’t have to go through this anymore.

Another effect mass shootings in schools have on students and faculty members are physical health problems. A physical health problem people have that are involved in a mass shooting in school is sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is when you don’t have enough of sleep. Many people who have been in a mass shooting will have nightmares of what happened that day. Some may try to stay awake so they don’t have to relive the school shooting over and over again. Sleep deprivation can cause damage to your body. It can also cause problems in school. If students are exhausted in class because they didn’t get enough sleep it will be hard for them to pay attention without dozing off. Students grades will drop because they are not paying attention in class. According to Howard Taras, who is the Acting Chief of Community Pediatrics at the University of California, out of all the health problems he investigated poor sleep was the cause of poor academic achievement. Most children need at least nine hours of sleep each night but most kids aren’t even getting that much sleep. Not only does mass shootings cause sleep deprivation, which then causes poor academic achievement, but it also causes acute stress disorder. The acute stress disorder is the development of severe anxiety, dissociative, and other symptoms that occur within one month after exposure to an extreme traumatic event (Bressert). The rates of acute stress disorder following a mass shooting is 33% (Bryant 2000). From being stressed people can go into shock, have impaired concentration, and have difficulty feeling happy. Being stressed all the time can also make it hard to sleep as well. Mass shootings can cause major deficits on students and faculty members. These physical health problems people are having after mass school shootings are destroying people’s lives. The Physical health problems are more serious than people think and if nothing is done to protect students and faculty members at school then these health problems will never go away. If we decrease the frequency of mass shootings people wouldn’t have to go through these health problems anymore. No one will have to worry about their family members being killed at a mass shootings at their school either.

My first solution to eliminate or at least decrease the frequency of mass shootings in schools is to create better gun control laws. One better gun control law can be making more efficient background checks. When someone is in a gun store buying a gun, they are required to have a background check. In a background check the person who is buying the gun must fill out a form that asks questions about your background, drug use, and criminal history. The gun store will then contact the NICS. The NICS then looks at the person’s mental health history, criminal history, immigration status, and drug use. They have three days to make a final determination of the buyer. If after three days, they don’t the store they are buying it from is allowed by law to sell the firearm to them. This is called the default proceed. The default proceed should not be allowed. Giving the NICS only three days to look through someone’s history is too short of a time period. No matter how long it takes for them to finish the background check the person trying to purchase a gun should not be able to purchase it without a background check completed. This is an ideal solution because it will not cost anything and if we get rid of the default proceed there will be a decrease in the frequency of mass shootings. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the default proceed allowed Dylann Roof to purchase a gun he later used to carry out the shooting spree in 2015 that left nine dead at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The NICS didn’t finish the background check in three days so Dylann Roof could buy a gun legally without the background check being completed. He was one of 2,892 people who obtained guns from shops through this loophole in 2015. If the default proceed was gone there would be less mass shootings in the world.

Many people will argue against better gun control laws. Having better gun control laws may cause problems to the people that want guns to protect themselves with or to use for hunting. It would be harder for them to obtain a gun. Also, by having better gun control laws people might say were taking away the second amendment. The second Amendment says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (Guns in American Society). People believe the second amendment gives an individual