On Friday May 7th, 9 students as well as 1 faculty member were murdered in a mass shooting in Santa Fe High school. The 17 year old suspect Dimitrios Pagourtzis set off the fire alarm before going on to slaughter his own school with a .38 caliber pistol and a shotgun, both of which were smuggled in in his trench coat.
This is the most severe mass shooting at a high school since the Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School shooting in Parkland FL., where 17 was killed by a man armed with an AR-15. Students at Santa Fe was devastated by the previous shooting. Some went to Florida and DC to attend rallies, and other supported outspoken Parkland students such as David Hogg. But little did they know that three months later, their school would be mourning for their own loved ones. In an interview from the New York Times, a student said that she wasn’t surprised that the shooting happened. She felt like mass shootings were happening everywhere, and her school would eventually fall victim.
According to witnesses, Pagourtzis stormed into multiple classrooms and art rooms before pumping rounds of shells into students. He was sighted wearing a shirt that says “Born to Kill”, and said “Surprise!” before opening fire. Officials later found explosives planted around campus as well as in the surrounding areas.
Officials say that there were no “warning signs” of dangerous behavior from Pagourtzis. His classmates described him as “introverted” and said that he didn’t talk to anyone and always wore a trench coat. Officials say that he surrendered after exchanging fire with first responders. According to his journal, he had initial plans of killing himself.
President Trump expressed his condolences from the East Room. As a member of the NRA, he personally vowed to take action after the terrible shooting in Stoneman High, but none has been taken. No regulations or stricter screening has been put into place. Congress hasn’t followed through with its promise to ban bum stocks, and the Justice department is considering using regulations to bypass Congress.
But today’s shooting was carried out with a low-caliber pistol and a shotgun, both of which was legally owned by Pagourtzis’s father. The weapons used in the shooting weren’t AR-15’s with bum stocks, but low-power weapons that is unlikely to get regulated. This shows a fundamental flaw in the logic of gun control: it’s the person, not the weapon. Anything in the hands of a psychopath could be lethal, including everyday objects such as knives, or even cars. Yes, I agree that some weapons can be more deadly than others. An AR-15 with a bum-stock is arguably deadlier than a pistol, as demonstrated in the Vegas shooting, but as demonstrated in today’s shooting, a hateful individual will find a way. A machine gun in the hands of a responsible, conscientious gun owner is less dangerous than a bad guy with a kitchen knife. The correlation between gun violence could be explained by the gun culture in the US, as well as the amount of violent individuals looking to replicate previous mass murders. The solution to gun violence is a tighter screening and application process, as well as more officials on the look out for ‘warning signs’. The second part can be hard or even fruitless, as demonstrated in today’s shooting, but it would have saved 17 lives in Parkland and counting.
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