As of 2013, there have been 290 school shootings in America yet in Britain there
hasn’t been a school shooting since 1996.
There has been a massive amount of shootings in America, so why do they still not have a solution to all this?
The Dunblane school massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot and killed 16 children and one teacher before killing himself. After this the UK government decided to introduce a gun law which meant citizens of the UK cannot get a hold of a gun. This has worked as a law because since the Dumblane shooting in 1996 there has not been another shooting.
However, in America guns are still legal and massacres like this still happen regularly. Since 2014 there has been on average a school shooting every week, leaving parents and US citizens worried everyday not knowing what to expect when they leave the house. On February 14, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Seventeen people were killed and fifteen more were taken to hospitals, making it one of the world’s deadliest school massacres.
This was a tragic event that fell on the 14th February, Valentine’s Day as children left for school sharing their last goodbyes and saying “I love you”.
Unknown to them, a cold hearted 19 year old was intentionally going to shoot the pupils of their school. No child should have to leave their parent worried and heartbroken, wondering if their child was going to return from school or if they would receive a phone call saying there child died. Emma Gonzalez, a 17 year old survivor of the school shooting in Parkland says “But this is not about me. This is about hope — and maybe, finally, a chance for change” as she hopes to make a law restricting people from buying guns, hoping that there will be less shootings and less tragic events meaning less broken hearts and no more wounds left unhealed.
Robert Runcie used to be a father of 3 and is now only a father to 1. “I walked all 3 of my children to school that morning not knowing only 1 of them will come home, not knowing it would be our last goodbye. I now walk her into school without her sisters, without her friends, without her teacher.” In America, anyone can buy a gun. An experiment was carried out a few years ago with a 13 year old showing him going into shops trying to buy illegal things. When he shows his ID he is turned away. He then walks into a gun market and walks back out with a rifle within minutes. If this young boy can buy a gun who’s to say he won’t walk into school the next day and open fire?
Guns should now be illegal in America. Americans should take a look at previous mass shootings in other countries, they have banned guns and there hasn’t been a shooting since. This can prove that by banning guns in the USA we can reduce the amount of shootings and deaths around the world. If not me, who? If not now, when? Something has got to happen, sooner than later
