Recently, the continuous re-occurrence of gun violence in schools has been a prominent topic of discussion. Currently, there are more than 350 million guns in circulation in the United States and one out of three homes with kids have guns (“Gun Violence: Facts and Statistics”, 2017). The safety of students and faculty in school should be the top priority for not just parents but society as well. Students should not be scared to go to school, it should be a sanctuary for learning and growing. Gun violence in schools is not a recent issue, but the magnitude of the acts and the media coverage of such acts has increased. The Columbine High School shooting, in April of 1999, was the worst high school shooting in the United States history at the time and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety. The gunmen killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other people before committing suicide. An investigation was launched to determine the cause of the violent act, but the true cause was never determined. After the shooting, many schools enacted zero-tolerance rules when it came to disruptive behavior and threats of violence from students (“Columbine”, 2009). The next notable school shooting occurred on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Tech, in …show more content…
Gun control laws are currently in place but are seen as lacking. Masters (2012) reports,
The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited the sale of firearms to several categories of individuals, including persons under eighteen years of age, those with criminal records, the mentally disabled, unlawful aliens, dishonorably discharged military personnel, and others. In 1993, the law was amended by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which mandated background checks for all unlicensed persons purchasing a firearm from a federally licensed