On February 14th in Parkland Florida a high school would be entering a school day with a terrible event. A shooting caused by a teenager that attends the same school that ends with seventeen students killed and leaves five students severely injured. This is an occurrence that no one in the school would ever think would happen to them. School shootings are a devastating occurrence that's hard to prevent and hard to rebuild from. Its a problem that's difficult to stop, but also  needs to be stopped.

School shooters are caused by a break down in the shooter’s mental health. If students have no gateways to relieve their stress or get help working out there problems they will believe that they dont matter and end up going mentally insane which isn't healthy for a teenage high school student. Programs and support groups are a perfect way to help students get the help they need. In the article The False Comfort Of Securing Schools by Micere Keels it states “Social and emotional interventions that help students coping with life's stressors and create healthy schoolwide norms for conflict resolutions are proven to reduce violence.” This is basically saying that programs to help students with there everyday life will create a healthier school environment.

Most parents believe that in order to prevent future school shootings schools need to have more security.Some schools that have already had schools shootings started to hire more police officers and have backpack checks they also have security scans on the students just to be sure. Students already went through the trauma of themselves being in a dangerous situation and there fellow classmates being killed. They don't need to be violated of their personal belongings. Although parents may be fearing for their child's safety, having more security is not the way to go. Keels states that “The instant to offer parents immediate relief from there anxieties risks making schools into a fortresses. For example, in Texas, the Senate select Committee on Violence in schools and school facilities, including limiting access points, improving screening and detecting of weapons, retrofitting schools facilities with improved locks, emergency alarm systems, and monitoring cameras”. This is saying that with adding more security it feels less like a school and more like prison. The students already went to fearing for their lives they don't need to locked up either.

Students at home lives are a more difficult problem to tackle. If students at home are experiencing domestic violence, it's hard for the school to give the proper help for the student even if the school offers programs. In domestic violence situations at home students could be fearful for their lives.If students are fearful they will normally keep quiet until there feelings boil over. It's the same thing as if the student is experiencing being bullied. If a student is being targeted they will normally be pushed to be seen as an outsider. The student may have built up anger and feel like there is no solution and just wants to end it all. A shooting at Santa Fe high school was caused by a 17 year old student who was being bullied. Before being shut out the student was a former football player who was popular. Since the student was being bullied and seen as an outsider, it was new to him and since he had no help he felt hopeless and took drastic measures and that's when the suffering started.

At school we should have more outreach programs for the mental ill. Every school has at least one counselor but that may not be enough. In order to get the students to seek help, the may need a little push from other students as well. If the students are seeing someone alone by themselves or constantly isolating themselves from other students or even if they notice a student is aggressive they should make an effort to go to the counselor let them know what is happening and help the student out without their name be known by the other student. Most school shootings if not all shootings are being done by males which could have something to do with the fact that in society males who express their feelings are seen as weak which is a stereotype that need to die down because it's the 20th century. In the article, How prevalent is mental illness in mass shootings? It states,“In a study of 185 public mass shootings– defined as an incident in which four or more people are killed at a public location – from 1900 through 2017 criminologist Grant Duwe found that 59 percent were committed by people who had been diagnosed as mentally ill or showed signs of having a serious mental disorder before the attack.” this is saying that most people who committed a school shooting had a mental illness or showed signs before the shooting.

The mentally ill commit school shootings.  We need to help them become better people. We need to help them to save ourselves and our children. Students need support , we can take something as bad as school shootings and help students through all of the pain without having it turn negative. Yes, school shootings are bad but we can tackle it with a gentle hand to help students mentality to prevent any shootings but to also to help people who have experienced it.