School shootings! Why oh why?

The last time I cried for strangers and felt the need to reach out, was when I was on my way back home on December 14, 2012, when I heard the news, about the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary school. It wasn’t the first school shooting I heard of, but it was the first one that made me cry. Names like Columbine, Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook are burned into the minds of our generation.

I was certain, absolutely certain, that the shooting at Sandy Hook would change our thinking. No one could get up saying “guns are not the problem”, after a nation just watched the burials of small children. That’s what I thought and once again -I was wrong. Nothing changed.

People still say “Guns are not the problem”, and whenever I hear that, I freeze inside and wonder how many more people -adults and children- will have to be killed by a mad person with a gun, until we will finally realize, that we might have a problem?

I just turned the news off, after I listened to the broadcast of another school shooting in Oregon. I won’t turn the news on for at least 2 days, because they media will hover over it. There will be interview after interview with everybody who knew the victims or the shooter. I feel that the media coverage is part of the problem.

Maybe it’s just a modern crime and we have to live with it. But if that’s the case, why do most of the school shootings happen in the U.S. and not in the rest of the world?

Between 1991 and 2013, there were over 50 school shootings in America with more than one victim and at least one fatality. No other country had more than three school shootings in the same time frame. That does make one wonder, doesn’t it?

The United States owns more guns per resident. than any other nation. 89 guns per 100 people, that’s quiet a number isn’t it? Although the fact that most of the killers obtained the weapons legally should make us rethink our gun laws.

“You can’t take the guns away from the American people”, is something that I hear over and over. Why not? Why can’t we take the guns away?

“Guns in the wrong hands, that’s the problem” is another argument, that can be heard after each shooting. School shooters are often called mentally ill, because no sane person would show such violence. Background checks for mental illness on people who purchase firearms, proves to be tricky business “people who are mentally ill and who seek treatment, expect their records to be kept confidential.” Unless American society decides, that a patient’s confidential medical records should be put on the NICS, which is used to run background checks on people who purchase firearms, preventing the mentally ill from purchasing a firearm becomes a long, challenging process.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution, which concerns the right to bear arms, is always a hot controversial issue, especially during election season. Most politicians won’t even dare touching this subject, because nobody want’s to risk to loose voters. That’s like saying “We will have to raise the taxes, because we are broke.” You don’t win a flower pot with that either.

The right to own a gun is almost untouchable -so it seems. but what about the right to see your child back at home after a day in school? Don’t parents have right too? What about the children and their right to go to school, without being scared about a mass shooting?

We might not be able to solve the problem we have right away, but I want to see us trying. I think it’s a combination of a lot of things that make all these school shootings possible. I don’t want to get used to news like that, but I feel that’s were we are going.

My original post today was about the “Kid President” instead I would like to share a youtube video of children, how they reacted to the Newtown school shooting in 2012. Very interesting to watch and to listen to. Maybe we should listen to kids more often, especially when it comes to school shootings. My heart goes out to the people who are affected by the school shooting today.