Gun Control

Gun Control

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In the recent times, there has been witnessed various crimes that were not so common in the past, but keeping the present situation in mind, it won’t be wrong to say that there are numbers of crimes that are grabbing attention of the world as most threatening crimes. Gun-related violence has been one of the latest crimes that made its way in every headline. It is heartbreaking to say that gun shooting has become one of the most common and drastic crime that the school children are dealing with at present and the number of gun shooting incidents are continuously increasing in numbers. According to Dixon, one of the very first incidents of gun shooting in the United States took place in 1764 and was known in history as the “Pontiac Rebellion School Massacre” and out of 13 enrolled students only three survived but with the advancement of time, this number start increasing each year.

It is heart-wrenching reality that for the last 20 years, not only students but teachers and parents as well, are living with the horrible reality of school shooting. According to James A and Mercy, the gun violence epidemic has taken the worst form and reaches to the mass shooting that even took students under its influence. In their research, they have devised and proposed various solutions, how schools, communities, and authorities could play a vital role in mitigating violence at schools by reducing the numbers of gun shooting incidents Mercy and his colleagues believe that communities and their socioeconomic characteristics also influence the violence activities (Public Health Policy for Preventing Violence | Health Affairs, 2019). They also believe that it is the responsibility of the federal and state government to protect the schools by making policies and action plans that would safeguard the school environment. According to Mercy and his colleagues, more focus on public health could be looked upon as a way of improving conditions of living as people are becoming more violent than before. They believe that it is the need of the hour to identify and implement effective programs and policies to reduce social violence. Another major step proposed by these scholars is that efforts of diverse scientific disciplines, communities and organizations must be integrated for reducing violence in society. Violence and gun shooting have become one of the major issues at present so at all levels sustained efforts are required for successfully addressing this deeply rooted and complex problem.

According to Tia Schneider and co-fellows, school life one used to resemble to gentle scenes by remembering Mr. Chips, but in the recent few years, the image of schools has been destroyed by gun shooting. In their study, they proposed some solutions that could be used for stopping violence and reducing shooting at schools (Reducing violence in U.S. schools – ProQuest, 2019). They believe that there is a need to take children in confidence as mostly school students are violators who involve themselves in school shooting. Foremost responsibility comes at the shoulders of parents that they need to develop a healthy bond with their children so that they could share their problems with their parents.

According to Sheldon and Epstein, for improving actions against shooting and violence in the history of the United States, the involvement of both family and community is equally important. In this study, they are pointing efforts school officials for implementing activities in which family and community would play a central role in reducing violent activities of students (Sheldon & Epstein, 2002). In this work, the constructive role of parents and community is being spotted as both these institutions (family and community) are responsible for shaping the personality of children, so they need to be more enthusiastic about reforming the attitude of their children as juvenile crimes are increasing faster than ever before. Constructive role of these two social groups and engagement between them and school officials would help them in updating about their children who could be reformed only by cooperation among these parents and teachers.

School safety was not that much important matter, as it has become now because of the episodes of violent activities at school. According to Dewey and Matthew, violence has generated and increased public concerns and force substantial changes in school security practices as well as disciplines. In their research, these experts claim that actions that need to be improved are a way of formulating security frameworks for schools. Considering a change in student behavior and increased juvenile crime there is a need to look over school safety policies and programs. Psychologists should be made a part of the policy formulation as nowadays they understand well how to identify issues youngsters went through and ways for dealing with them.

Public institutions and schools are in headlines every second day as there occur horrible incidents that leave many families in tears. As per the research work of Jorge D. Hevia, the audit and certification process could be used as one of the ways of improving public institution's and school's conditions. In this article, the researcher has proposed the idea that national-level organizations must be made responsible for evaluating the proposed security system of schools and public places so that incidents of violence could be reduced. School and public institution security associations must analysis a proposed safety plan whether it stands up to the real world experience or not (Hevia et al, 2019). Certification process should be introduced where security integrators would be trained as well as certified on how safe audit facilities are. Only those public institutions and schools should be given a certificate that would qualify the evaluation phase.

Difference of opinion cannot be denied and discouraged, as it has been seen that different researchers in their work proposed different ideas that how various actions need to be improved and new ways should be implemented for reducing violence and shootings at schools. According to Kevin Clark, offenders must be taught a lesson for affecting so many lives. In this work, he claims that there is a need to pay more attention towards response plan and actions need to be improved so that violent activities could be responded timely for saving more lives (Clark et al, 2019). It has been proposed that people at public places have to keep them safe from the harming impact of violence and should need to avoid, deny and defend themselves. All these safety measures point that people are directed towards ways how they have to respond under threatening conditions to mitigate the hazardous effects of violence and school shootings. Students and the general public must be trained how to respond in such emergencies so that the risk of losing life could be reduced.

So as a whole, it could be said that actions that need to be improved are, focusing more on building healthy relationship with children so that they could be kept away from the mental tension that drags them towards crimes like violence and mass shooting at school. It is the responsibility of parents, teacher and community to build a healthy relation. Unless families and communities are going to be active in knowing which activities their children are getting involved in, it would be hard to reduce violent activities despite taking several steps for reducing violence and school shooting.

References

Clark, K. R. (2019). Implementing an Active Shooter Policy and Training Program.

Hevia, J. D. (2018). Impediments to US Educational & Public Institutions Ameliorating the Mass Shooting Epidemic with Effective State-of-the-Art Security Solutions &. Amityville, NY: Napco Security Technologies, Inc.

Public Health Policy for Preventing Violence | Health Affairs. (2019). Health Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.12.4.7

Reducing violence in U.S. schools - ProQuest. (2019). Search.proquest.com. Retrieved 11 November 2019, from

https://search.proquest.com/openview/2fc8cb3030642b98f555b4634053285c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=25210

Sheldon, S. B., & Epstein, J. L. (2002). Improving student behavior and school discipline with family and community involvement. Education and urban society, 35(1), 4-26.