2015 was the year of mass shootings they say, there was 372 mass shootings in the US, killing 475 people and wounding 1,870 according to the mass shooting tracker. There has been 142 school shootings since 20 elementary school students and six adult were killed by gunman Adam Lanza at Sandy hook elementary School in Newtown Conn On Dec 14 2012.

Nearly 53% percent of the identified Shootings took place at K-12 Schools and the other 47% took place on College Universities. In 95 incidents, over half the perpetrators intentionally injured or killed at least one other person with a gun. There has been 142 School shootings since the Sandy hook shooting, that’s nearly one every week.

On Wednesday February 14th, a day meant to be full of love, was filled with hatred and death for many families in the Southeast of our country. A high school in Florida suffered the hate of an AR-15 style rifle carried by Nikolas Cruz. This shooting made its way up to one of the country’s 10 deadliest mass shootings.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was where the assassination took place and took the lives of 17 people, according to NPR. The Washington Post said that at least 14 were injured according to the officials that responded to the scene.

The scenes seen by the students at the high school should not have been scenes happening at a public school. “Witnesses first confused his bullets with popping chip bags and fire crackers, then they heard screams and saw blood and bodies”, according to The Washington Post. Disoriented students would have been a perfect target for Nikolas Cruz, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Nikolas Cruz had planned his school shooting with detail. According to The Washington Post, he entered about the time that school was going to end. And started to fire, room by room, and floor by floor. “[Nikolas Cruz] told the authorities he took an Uber to the school, fired inside and outside”, says The Washington Post. Once he got to the top floor he dropped his weapon and took part in the evacuation with the other students, blending in to get away from the police and first responders in the area.

This particular school shooting was one of the most devastating in U.S. history. Fed up by another shattering event regarding the nation’s weak gun control, students at Stoneman Douglas High took matters into their own hands. Students organized nationwide marches to challenge U.S. gun control set to take place on March 24 in 519 different cities worldwide.

Soon after the statement of the planned rallies to demand stronger gun control was released Dick’s Sporting Goods released a statement of their own regarding their sale of guns. Dick’s said that they would stop selling assault style rifles as well as raise the minimum age to buy any type of firearm at their stores from 18 to 21 because of the progress the students who organized the March For Our Lives rallies had made. Dick’s stated that they have “tremendous respect and admiration for the students organizing and making their voices heard regarding gun violence in schools and elsewhere in our country.”

The immediate impact the March for Our Lives Rallies have had shows how the rallies are capable of making such a big impact regarding U.S gun control. Without the rallies even taking place yet the sale of automatic rifles from one of the nations top gun outlets has been abolished. The promise by Dick’s Sporting Goods is a great first step in strengthening our nation’s gun control but the students who organized the rallies are not satisfied yet. They need as many people to attend the March For Our Lives Rallies on March 24 as possible so if you are interested in making a difference attend the rally in San Jose on the 24th of March to let your voice regarding gun violence and gun control be heard.

In the United States there were up to 33,599 gun deaths in 2014, compared to Japan’s amount of gun deaths there was only in fact 6 gun deaths at the time. If you would like to purchase a gun in Japan you would have to go through a very lengthy process in order to purchase one. In Japan they do all mental, physical, and drug tests to see if you’re even eligible to purchase a weapon, such as they check your criminal records to see if you have any relation to extremist groups, and also check your friends and family’s background to see if they are mentally stable. Japan’s gun shops also have the right to deny giving you a gun licence if they even slightly think you will bring a danger to there community by purchasing a weapon.

In the U.S. their is a persay ‘simple’ process you have to go through in order to earn your gun licence and purchase a gun. The U.S. gun rate is up to 60% compared to Japan’s gun rate there is a dramatic difference. Perhaps the U.S should make a more thorough process, like Japan, to purchase a gun and receive a gun licence. If Japan goes through that whole process and had such little gun deaths in 2014 compared to the U.S. and if the U.S. goes through that whole similar process perhaps we would have had lower gun deaths throughout the year of 2014.

A public survey open to all Lincoln High School students was conducted in late February 2018, collecting important information about student’s feelings on gun control and whether or not they were in favour of gun ownership and supported stricter gun regulation in today’s America, or if they didn’t support it and why. The survey was created to be as objective as possible, giving both options of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ under opinionated questions, even including a ‘Maybe’ option for those who just aren’t sure on what they want to happen. With general questions such as “would you be in favor of gun laws being more strict in America” and “how do you feel about the idea of being able to own a personal firearm”, our survey collected a vast amount of results necessary to get a general feeling on how high school students at Lincoln feel about today’s gun legislation in America.

With 31.3% of Lincoln High School students feeling unsafe on campus grounds in the last month, there is a notable amount of students who feel endangered on school campus thanks to the recent controversy over gun control in America, and this should not be ignored. While there is a fear of guns among our campus, students overall have showed mixed feelings towards the idea of Americans even being allowed to own firearms to begin with, 34.4% of students are in favour of supporting gun ownership, with 31.3% non-supporters and 34.4% percent being unsure on how they feel about gun ownership. Just under 59.4% of LHS students are in favour of gun laws in America today being stricter, in favour of banning automatic weapons for the general public, with 9.4% believing our laws today are fair enough, and 31.3% again feeling unsure about their side of the controversy.

Sources:

BBC News “Guns In The US: The Statistics Behind The Violence” 5, Jan. 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34996604 Accessed March 2018
Farber Madeline “’March for Our Lives’ gun control rally to draw thousands across US: Everything you need to know” Fox News 7 Mar. 2018 http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/07/march-for-our-lives-gun-control-rally-to-draw-thousands-across-us-everything-need-to-know.html Accessed March 2018
Frankel, Todd C., et al. “Dick’s Sporting Goods Joins Chorus for Gun Control, Stops Selling Assault-Style Rifles.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Feb. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/dicks-sporting-goods-joins-chorus-for-gun-control-stops-selling-assault-style-rifles/2018/02/28/8d19be20-1cba-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.c15ba3091f56. Accessed March 2018
Martin, Patrick “Florida Students Plead With Congress: It’s About The Guns” The Washington Post, 18 Feb. 2018,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/florida-students-plea-with-congress-its-about-the-guns/2018/02/18/0c4e89ca-14c1-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.bd25378e7d46 Accessed February 2018
Mosher, Dave and Gould Skye “How Likely Is Gun Violence To Kill The Average American? The Odds May Surprise You” Business Insider, 15, Feb. 2018
http://www.businessinsider.com/mass-shooting-gun-statistics-2018-2 Accessed March 2018
ProCon “Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?” 5, Oct. 2017 https://gun-control.procon.org/ Accessed March 2018
Rose, Joel, and Brakkton Booker. “Parkland Shooting Suspect: A Story Of Red Flags, Ignored.” NPR, NPR, 1 Mar. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/02/28/589502906/a-clearer-picture-of-parkland-shooting-suspect-comes-into-focus. Accessed March 2018
Stewart, Emily. “Dick’s Sporting Goods Says It Won’t Sell Assault Weapons Anymore. It Said the Same Thing in 2012.” Vox, 28 Feb. 2018, www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/28/17061618/dicks-sporting-goods-parkland-gun-sales. Accessed February 2018
The Washington Post “Visual Story | How Valentine’s Day Turned Deadly at a Florida School.” 15 Feb. 2018,
www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/amp-stories/florida-shooting-reconstruction/?tid=graphics-story Accessed March 2018
Written by Ephraim Smith and conducted using Google Surveys, February 2018.