In a paper published by the New England journal of medicine in 2018, the second leading cause of death
among youths in the US is firearms. This comes after car crashes and the Everytown organization likes to
call these problems uniquely American. This is because, since the year 2018, there have been reports of
shooting every month of March in US schools across America.
The year 2020 has not witnessed any school shooting in March as has been the case for almost two
decades now. This is because the schools closed and as the coronavirus persists, they might remain to
shut down for the rest of the school year. Students are now learning from home with homeschooling
and online learning becoming the new normal for most people. This is necessary to ensure that
prevention is assured and that there is a low spread of the coronavirus disease.
Since the shooting in 2002, this has been the longest students have stayed in school without witnessing
another shooting especially in March. The data from the national school safety center and the national
school safety security systems states that there have been shootings every march since 2002. This was
the year that a 13-year-old student went to school with a gun but was subdued before he could shoot at
anyone he had on his hit list.
Although in march 2020 there have also been several shootings, none of them is like the typical school
shootings witnessed before. Even so, there has been a rise in gun purchases across the country and
there is s fear that the shooting will increase once the pandemic is over. A store manager has reported
that they are witnessing a rise in sales since the pandemic started because most people fear for their
safety and are afraid of the unknown. There is therefore a chance that these guns will find their way to
schools when they finally reopen.
Even as school gunning goes down, there is a chance that it will increase when they reopen. Gun dealers
are selling more firearms now than before and this will be the reason for the rise. More students are still
facing danger at home and this might increase when they go back to school.
According to Igor Volsky, the director of guns down America executive, when this pandemic ends, we
will come out from the physical distancing but the guns will remain. There will therefore be an increase
in mass shootings both in schools, workplaces, and even concerts.
There is a need for more action to be taken against these shootings because it is difficult to predict what
might happen in the future. Although in the 2020 march there was no school shooting, this might be
because of the closing of schools. This trend will not continue if, by next March, the schools will be open.
Some of these shootings are not between students and adults are still acquiring guns.