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Is This The New Normal
Dymond Phillips • Mar 03, 2018
Valentine's Day Massacre
Today is the first day the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School returned to school after the tragedy that occurred two weeks ago. As I read about this hard day, I knew I had to discuss this today. This hits home because I'm currently in school and I have family members and friends who are all different ages in school. But let me back up.....
I know you've heard about the most recent school shooting. You haven't? Where have you been? Well let me fill you in. On Wednesday, February 14th, 2018 one of the most deadliest school shootings occurred in Parkland FL. This shooting resulted in 14 students and 3 faculty members dead. Now this was a super hard topic for me to research and talk about but something needed to be said. The shooter was 19 year old, Nikolas Cruz. Let the news tell it, he's a broken human who's remorseful about what he's done. But you and I know that that's some bs
So are you ready to know exactly what happened? Allow me to explain it to you.....
Nikolas Cruz, arrived at the school in an Uber at 2:19 PM, right before dismissal time. He made his way toward the freshman building. He shot people in the hallways and inside five classrooms on the first and second floors. On the third floor, students were leaving their classroom when they heard gunshots. Teachers were shot after trying to fight off the gunman and even trying to lock the doors. He eventually discarded the rifle, a vest, and ammunition in a stairwell, and blended in with the students to get away. I know you're wondering, so how exactly did he get caught? Well, after he left the school, he walked to a Walmart and bought a drink at a Subway. That's the part that scares me because how can you go shoot and kill innocent people and just continue on with your day like it's nothing. As he walked down a residential street just a few miles from the school, at 3:41 PM, he was stopped and arrested by the police.
Now I know reading about this story is heartbreaking, but what makes it worse is the fact this probably won't be the last school shooting. Across the United States since 2013, theres been over 291 school shootings. This includes suicide attempts, and any shootings that happened on a schools premises. Now that doesn't mean that all of them have had many if any casualties, but they have happened. So what is the solution? Is there a solution at all? First let me tell you more about the shooter. Nikolas Cruz was previously expelled from Marjory Stonemean High School because he was "mentally disturbed." He was also expelled for bad and erratic behavior. There was so many signs, between teachers students family members and neighbors they all knew he was big problem. Even more red flags were the fact that: The police have went to his house 39 times in the past year, he even sent out threats to students stating that he'd kill them. But yet he was able to obtain a gun at age 18 and after all these flags the gun was never taken away from him. If the Florida police would have taken his gun at the first site of problems we wouldn't be in this predicament. That raises the question, why was a 18 year old able to legally obtain a firearm? This is not just a mental health issue, this is a gun issue.
So who do we blame for these tragedies? The family for allowing him to have the gun, the president or the NRA? Answer is, there's nobody to blame for this crime but HIM. Truth is we need tougher gun laws. There needs to be deeper background checks of anyone looking to purchase a gun. I don't have the answers but I do know that we have to build schools differently so they're harder to penetrate. People should not be able to just walk into a school and walk around whether armed or not. We also need to allow police officers the right to take guns from people who are not mentally there. Once these weapons are taken they should never be able to get them back. On top of all that we need some gun control reform!
