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School Shootings: It’s Not the Guns, It’s Kids Killing Kids
Americans ages 18 to 20 account for only four percent of the population but 17 percent of murders. School shootings and their equivalent at Walmarts get the most attention. The problem is not just the guns. It is the young men who wield them. That means any possible solution rests with the shooter, not the firearm.
There’s a pattern inside those sordid statistics, with some 70% of school shootings since 1999 have been carried out by people under 18. The median age of school shooters is 16. It’s kids shooting kids, whether because they are left out, bullied, teased, or angry at some slight or teacher’s offense, it is kids killing kids. Since these killings tend to be “local,” typically shooter and the dead share a racial and/or social-economic background, leaving “white supremacy” as a cause in the dustbin alongside the 1990s blaming “heavy metal” and Satanism. There have been at least 554 school shooting victims, with at least 311,000 children exposed to gun violence at school in the U.S. since the Y-in-the-road game changing Columbine High School massacre, spread across 331 schools. The frequency of shootings has increased, with a surge of 34 incidents in 2021, the highest in any year since 1999.
Since it’s not the guns per se but young men who are to blame, more traditional gun control is unlikely to make much of a difference. Already under the Federal Gun Control Act (GCA), shotguns and rifles, and ammunition for shotguns or rifles may be sold only to individuals 18 years of age or older. All other firearms can be sold only to individuals 21 years of age or older. Licensed sellers are bound by the minimum age requirements established by the GCA regardless of state or local law. However, if state law or local ordinances establish a higher minimum age, the licensee must observe the higher age requirement.
Background checks vary in quality from state to state but generally seek to prohibit sales for reasons such as a history of domestic abuse or violent felony convictions, crimes unlikely to snare the shooters just out of high school. No background check is going to catch someone seething with rage over race or his grandmother. Checks also are at the time of purchase and gun ownership can be forever. There is the private transfer loophole that bypasses most background checks, but no evidence that young mass killers seek out this method of gun purchase.There is also the Columbine divide that somehow factors in to kids killing kids. Pre-Columbine America saw school shootings number only approximately 300 instances in 150 years. Post-Columbine shootings number 331 in only 23 years. Something big is very wrong in America and our kids are not alright. Add in drug use and overdose deaths, and teen suicides (many involving guns; suicide is the third greatest cause of teen death, with homicide in the number two position), and you have more than a crisis, you have a nightmare.Though the Columbine killers had few friends, it is doubtful no one (including parents and siblings) had no idea about the thoughts running through their heads. Later this would all be blamed on the then-new shooting games like DOOM (a “murder” simulator) and heavy metal music. But it seems much less a surface problem and more something deeper and thus ironically more visible. In other words, in Columbine and likely in many of the other 331 modern-era school shooting, somebody should have seen it coming.Therein lies several potential solutions. Lessening gun access in specific, targeted ways may help, such as raising the Federal age for long guns to age 21 or older. Provide tougher penalties for anyone who illegally sells guns to those under age, and for adults/parents who do not secure their guns. Such measures are statistically supported, do not affect most current gun owners, and simply require the sacrifice by legitimate young hunters of safely using dad’s old rifle another year.But real change will require enhanced red flag laws, laws which enlist parents, gun sales people, teachers, and peers in spotting students who should not have ready access to firearms. A red flag law allows people to petition a state court for the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger themselves or others. A judge makes the final determination. Such laws exist in 19 states and D.C. at present (14 states of those states adopted red flag gun laws after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida) with considerable variation. One of the most significant variations is who may petition a court to take someone’s guns away. Every state currently allows law enforcement to do so, but California is the only one which includes family members. None of the laws in place allow teachers, clergy, doctors, coworkers, or school peers, people who may well know a young man’s intent best, to petition. A Federal law which standardizes such criteria is badly needed.Opposition to red flag laws tends to fall on standard grounds, specifically that not all states allow the gun holder full due process at his hearing (easily remedied by a Federal law that does) and the generic concern about the government having the ability to take a gun anyway from anyone. Yet gun confiscation via a hearing, though likely needing a Supreme Court decision of its own for clarity, appears to be an example of presumptively lawful regulatory measures (such as regulating concealed weapons, prohibiting possession of firearms by felons, etc.) already permissible under Heller v. District of Columbia. Basic red flag laws are judicially sound, and have, for example, been used in Florida nearly 6,000 times since 2018 and survived a state Supreme Court challenge there. And Florida has had no school shootings since the law went into effect. New York’s current red flag law, had it been properly implemented, could have stopped the grocery store shooter.School shootings almost always involve a delineable type of shooter: 16-18, male, loner. Red flag laws are designed to take guns away from people before they commit crimes, and have been legally tested. As a potential national-level solution they do not restrict gun ownership among most adults, and barely open the Pandora’s Box of the Second Amendment. They are as apolitical as anything to do with guns in America can be (and are supported by 72 percent of Americans. Donald Trump has backed red flag laws.) In the search for answers following the latest school shooting, a Federal red flag law is worth a… shot.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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Rich Bauer said...
1The Newtown mass murderer got his sick hands on his mother’s “home defense Bushmaster.” Get rid of the fucking Bushmaster.
06/3/22 7:01 PM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
2Since our Gutless politicians will never ban assault weapons these 18year old mental sickfucksare using, then here’s another option: Reclassify semi-automatic rifles as Class 3 firearms.
This would mean that a sickfuck wanting to purchase an AR-15 to shoot little kids would have to go through a background check, fingerprinting and review by an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — a process that takes anywhere from 12 to 16 months. And since Class 3 weapons can’t be purchased by anyone younger than 21, it would solve the issue of emotionally unstable 18-year-old sickfucks buying them.
A Class 3 firearm reclassification would also make those who are approved to purchase these weapons subject to an annual check that they are complying with federal regulations regarding secure storage of the firearm, and to confirm their licensing and other paperwork is up to date. All of these hoops and hurdles are sure to reduce the civilian demand for these weapons.
And make these sickfucks pay a $5000 bond to cover potential damages..just like a car insured.
06/5/22 7:03 PM | Comment Link
Doc said...
3National Red Flag laws might be ok in a perfect world. In our current society where the justice system is totally political, the potential ramifications are hideous at best. Folks will get away with calling in and reporting anyone that they dislike for any reason. Accused of a hate crime? No guns for you. Heck, with what Medium has done to you, folks could use that as “evidence” to have you red flagged. And it wouldn’t have to be only about guns.
06/8/22 3:23 PM | Comment Link
wemeantwell said...
4Sadly, you have a good point. I am not trusted with the word processor these days, never mind an actual gun.
06/8/22 6:40 PM | Comment Link