PRO: Ever since gun violence became an issue in United States schools, the shooting at Bath Consolidated School in 1927, gun violence and threats have become increasingly more common. In 2022, Michigan schools received 7,415 gun-violence warnings, an increase of 19 percent from the year before. While many schools have different policies, South exposes school shootings and threats, and I believe it’s an extremely important policy.
Announcing and recognizing these tragedies is just as important as stopping them. Bringing attention to these situations can encourage others to speak out about hints and tips for future shootings. According to the Sandy Hook Promise, every four out of five mass school shootings have at least one person aware of the threat; yet, they fail to report it in time.
While reporting these outbreaks of violence can have a negative effect, like glorifying the circumstances, it is still incredibly important to acknowledge these brutalities, confidently. Acknowledging these situations can not only inform the people who could be in danger, but can also encourage others to speak up before it’s too late.
If more transparency was used when addressing gun violence in schools, then many more students would speak up about the signs of gun violence in schools. That is why the SaySomething and OK2SAY programs were created, for students to feel safe when reporting possible threats. These programs have become exceedingly more useful and valuable as these violences have become more frequent.
Overall, it is especially valuable to call out school gun violence threats and events because it inspires and motivates students to communicate future threats to maintain the safety of our school systems nationwide.
CON: Violence in any capacity can be extremely disturbing for those unlucky enough to witness it transpire or be involved in it themselves. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s supposed to be.
The fear we experience when we see something violent; something that poses a threat to our safety and the safety of our loved ones serves a purpose, and that purpose is to compel us to eliminate the source of the fear. Whether that means confronting the threat head-on or removing ourselves from it, fear is supposed to briefly engage to trigger action, and then subside once the threat has been neutralized.
Unfortunately in America, the senseless violence of mass-shootings has become something of an epidemic, and with the instantaneous-nature of modern information travel and the interconnectivity of the online world, each tragic attack is felt around the globe.
Every time the top story on Apple News regards a random slaughter at a small-town parade, or a video surfaces from inside a cramped classroom where students are frantically barricading the door as gunshots and screams echo from the hallway, fear is triggered on a massive scale.
This fear however, is not productive, as the millions of people who are watching and reading about these attacks from their homes have no way of facing or avoiding the threat. Rather, the general public is forced to walk around with the constant sense that they could face danger at any moment, in any location, without even the slightest indication of its presence before its arrival.
In an attempt to assuage these fears, we are quick to consume as much information as possible regarding the tragedies when they happen, almost as if knowing the horrid details gives us some sort of control over them.
However this is not the case. Instead, the mass-consumption of information regarding gun violence incentivizes publications and social media sites to shine a spotlight on similar stories when they occur, thus exacerbating the already ever-present fear felt around the world.
By no means should mass-shootings be ignored, and the issue should be front and center for American politicians and lawmakers, however, the continued showcasing of horrific acts of terror as they happen does nothing but foster an insatiable fear in the general public, and if anything, desensitizes us to tragedy.
