In light of the recent tragedy at Parkland High School, proposed gun control measures have been springing up across the nation calling for anything from an increase in the age at which one can own a rifle and buyback programs to the banning of certain attachments such as bump stocks, suppressors and extended magazines.
Granted some of these measures are understandable, such as the banning of individuals with mental health issues from owning a weapon and those on the no fly list not having access to any sort of weaponry.
However, if the objective is to stop other tragedies like Columbine or Sandy hook from happening, then the appropriate measure should be focusing more on mental health services within youth populations to stop the problem before it starts.
With regards to the incident at Parkland High School, students who were interviewed about the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, were not surprised and many concluded that he always talked about being the next school shooter and that he was an overall troubled individual. Despite many 911 calls to the house, signs of bullying, and even an announcement by Cruz online saying that he would shoot up his school, he was still ignored and overlooked by authorities.
Cruz was known for violence in the past, such a shooting a chicken with a BB gun and “throwing a rock at another individual” according to Broward’s Sheriff’s office back in 2008.
Since he was a strange individual at school he lacked friends and was frequently bullied, but teachers, parents, and authority’s never sought out help from mental health services, which with the help of, could have prevented the tragedy.
In order to commit a massacre at the level of Parkland, Sandy Hook, or Columbine, one must be already a disturbed individual and have little to no empathy or care for human life and a great desire for attention, or to summarize: a psychopath.
Psychopaths think very highly of themselves and believe anyone around them to be of very little importance. As seen in the Columbine shooting, the two shooters wanted to be immortalized and according to Dave Cullen of Slate, were said to have “in fact, laughed at petty school shooters.
They bragged about dwarfing the carnage of the Oklahoma City bombing and originally scheduled their bloody performance for its anniversary. Klebold boasted on video about inflicting “the most deaths in U.S. history.”
Columbine was intended not primarily as a shooting at all, but as a bombing on a massive scale.
If they hadn’t been so bad at wiring the timers, the propane bombs they set in the cafeteria would have wiped out 600 people. After those bombs went off, they planned to gun down fleeing survivors.”
As well as “Their vision was to create a nightmare so devastating and apocalyptic that the entire world would shudder at their power.”
They wanted attention and they wanted to be immortalized as terrorists. Even though they were dead the media still gave them the attention they desired.
In today’s society, shooters are all over the news almost instantaneously, and in their minds, glorified. They get attention for not just a day, or a week but months on end. The narcissistic aspect gives them only a care for how they are seen by society, teaching a lesson to those around them, or simply just being feared by everyone, oftentimes, all three combined.
When other people with psychopathic tendencies see this broadcast in the media, they are encouraged to commit similar acts in order to one up each other and gain the attention they desire.