Adding to the repeated incidents of gun firings inside school campuses across several regions of the United States, a 14-year-old student opened fire at Georgia's Apalachee High School in Winder on Wednesday killing four people and injuring nine others, authorities said. The injured were taken to hospitals. The deceased were identified as two students and two teachers of the school.
Gunshot, hard lockdown: Atmosphere of terror
From sudden deafening sounds of gunshots and the words 'hard lockdown' appearing on screens in classrooms to teachers taking off their shirts to help treat gunshot wounds- the incident led to an atmosphere of inexplicable terror causing the frightened students to scramble for a safe shelter amid the chaos. Later, they were all taken to the football stadium.
Traffic going to the school was backed up for more than a mile as parents tried to get to their children. Barrow County schools will be closed for the rest of the week as they cooperate with the investigation, but grief counseling will be available.
In a strong reaction opposing the increasing gun violence in the country, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “It's just outrageous that every day, in our country, in the United States of America, parents have to send their children to school worried about whether or not their child will come home alive."
In a message posted to social media, former President Donald Trump said: “These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”
45 school shootings so far this year
According to a report by CNN, as of September 4, at least 45 school shootings have been reported in the United States- 13 on college campuses, and 32 on K-12 school grounds leaving at least 23 people dead and 62 others injured,
Dozens of school shootings across schools in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas have made headlines with the classroom killings.
Besides the school shootings, rampant mass killings in the U.S. so far this year have killed at least 127 people, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.
2023 ended with 217 deaths from 42 mass killings, making it one of the deadliest years on record for such shootings in the country.
As the schools were closed in 2020, the first year of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, a sharp decline in gun violence was observed followed by a stark increase in school shootings in 2021, 2022, and 2023- all setting records since at least 2008.
Where do voters stand on gun control ahead of 2024 US elections?
Research says no other topic divides voters in the United States more deeply than the difference of opinion regarding gun laws.
According to the Pew Research Centre, 83 percent of Joe Biden’s supporters said that the increase in guns in the U.S. was bad for the society and wanted gun control over gun rights. On the contrary, Donald Trump’s supporters expressed opposing views.
In 2023, a Harvard Institute of Politics poll suggested that 63 percent of young Americans wanted stricter gun laws. The survey was conducted on a group of Americans aged 18 to 29 across different demographics, including gender, race, and education status.
US gun laws: How guns are so easily accessible
As the demand for stricter gun laws continues, little has been done to move the needle on national gun laws in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, guns are deeply ingrained in American society and culture with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution allowing citizens the right to bear arms. Research says a third of U.S. adults personally own a gun.
At the same time, in response to concerns such as rising gun death rates and mass shootings, the U.S. surgeon general has taken the unprecedented step of declaring gun violence a public health crisis.
Some key findings of Pew's research give us a clearer look at the gun ownership rates across political affiliation, gender, community type, and other factors.
As per the research, 45 percent of Republicans and the Grand Old Party-leaning independents say they personally own a gun, compared with 20 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners.
The gender-based ownership rate suggests that 40 percent of men say they own a gun, versus 25 percent of women.
47% of adults living in rural areas report owning a firearm, as do smaller shares of those who live in suburbs (30%) or urban areas (20%).
Numbers from the perspective of race and ethnicity shows that 38 percent of White Americans own a gun, compared with smaller shares of Black (24%), Hispanic (20%), and Asian (10%) Americans.
