In the wake of the most recent school shooting in Florida many people are once again having the same debate that always follows these incidents. in these times we have those who want stricter laws in place, but the perpetrators are criminals and will ignore the law anyways. And on the other side saying we need to look at the way we handle mental health issues these individuals are suffering from. However i see the problem in a different sense.
In 1990 the US congress passed the Gun-Free School zone act as act 1702 of the Crime Control Act of 1990. This law prohibited any person who was unauthorized to possess a firearm on school grounds or within 1000 feet of the building unless on private property. This was initially over ruled by the supreme court as they saw is as an unconstitutional exercise of congressional authority. However in 1996 Attorney Janet Reno revisited the act by adding the requirement that the fire arms in question must have been involved interstate commerce to be affected. This move was what ultimately led to the final passing of the act which many viewed as an underhanded tactic because all firearms are involved in interstate commerce at one point or another. Regardless of the feeling towards it the act was passed.
Since the passing of the gun free act we have seen a steady increase in school shooting over the last 30 years
as you can see in the chart above mass shootings have been at an almost steady rise since the 1990s. Now i know some less informed people will blame it on the guns pointing to the old "the founding fathers never knew guns would become this powewrful, able to hold this many rounds, able to fire this many rounds so quickly, etc etc" But this is false as anyone familiar with the puckle gun or the remington bison or the flintlock will tell you. Now durring our countries history we did not have a problem with unnecessary mass killing. Yes we had a bloody history that took place during an expansionist time period but then it was a matter of war. However since the passing of the gunfree zone act we have seen increasing gun violence year after year. we can also track the point when we were no longer allowed to report suspicious behavior from our peers for fear of being punished for singling them out. You saw it dint you around 2011.
with this info i believe the only way to keep our children safe is to repeal the gun free zone act and for all of us to stop planting this fear of singling people out above the potential lifes of everyone else around them. we have to pay attention so we can prevent some of these tragic events. Not all but some. Some people you will never know that they are struggling and that is tragic but the solution is not to disarm those who are good or those we believe are bad but to notice the signs of a person going bad and intervening before harm can be done to themselves or those aroound them