A recent spate of student-involved shootings in North Texas has left families reeling and some school districts scrambling to put things under control. However, this series of violent acts has not received national attention. One reason for this is that these shootings appear to have targeted only a few students. One student at Arlington ISD's Bowie High School was killed, but victims in two other incidents in Dallas are expected to recover, including two students injured in off-campus drive-by shootings.
Parents and students in affected districts will be required to provide detailed answers about how their students brought guns to school. But while heightened safety measures are needed, the latest mass shooting shows that simply “hardening” campuses is not enough to rein in a culture of violence fueled by easy access to guns and addiction to social media. You must be keenly aware that it cannot be repaired.
School violence is a fact of American life, as common as tests, football, and prom. In the 2021-22 school year, 61% of public schools recorded at least one physical fight or assault without a weapon. About 4% of schools, or 3,700 campuses, reported at least one assault with a weapon.
This data comes from the latest federal survey on school crime and safety by the National Center for Education Statistics. Although we only focus on violence that occurs within schools, there are also conflicts involving students off campus.
The use of guns in schools is also rare but on the rise. Everytown, a gun safety advocacy group, said in 2013, the first year it began tracking the data, he recorded 51 incidents in which a gun was discharged on school grounds across the country. Last year, it recorded 137 incidents and 42 deaths.
The situation looks bad this year as well. As of last week, Everytown's database had recorded 63 shooting incidents for him, resulting in 24 deaths.
Fights at school are not like they used to be when we were kids. Many of them are filmed on mobile phones, and he ends up uploading them to TikTok and Snapchat, where they are shared as social currency.
Meanwhile, lawmakers at the state and federal level have resisted passing sensible gun safety laws (such as universal background checks) as well as allowing anyone to carry firearms. Texas followed several other states in passing permitless carry three years ago.
The Texas Legislature has pushed through a flurry of school safety regulations in recent years. Some of the requirements include having armed security guards in all schools, installing panic buttons in classrooms, and training certain school district staff to recognize students who need mental health support. It will be done.
Texans can keep trying to make their schools stronger, but the violence won't stop at the school gates. We have to send our children out into the world, but we can't keep them in a bubble of protection. We will continue to fail them as long as we focus on strengthening our schools while allowing this country's culture of violence and gun rights absolutism to trap each other in a nasty loop.
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