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School Shootings Haven’t Changed

Madison Jernigan
Music & Culture IRL
Published in
9 min readMay 7, 2023
Photo by Isabella Fischer on Unsplash

School shootings may seem recent because of the news and how common they have become, but they go all the way back to 1853. “November 2, 1853 Louisville, Kentucky, a student Mathew F. Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before” (Cornell). It has been 170 years, and nothing has changed. “Nothing changes after these mass killings — we’ve learned that. We learned it after Columbine, after Sandy Hook, and after Parkland. As horrible as this latest catastrophe was, I’m past expecting federal gun reform from legislators in D.C.” (Uebelacker). Sure there have been gun-control laws put in place, but that doesn’t stop a person from taking someone else’s gun and shooting up a school. “States with weaker gun laws have higher rates of firearm related homicides and suicides, study finds” (Tucker). None of this will change until the government gets involved and favors children over guns. Music has relayed this topic well, as there are plenty of songs about this subject.

First, let’s look at what the Second Amendment actually says. “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” In other words, nobody has the legal right to own a gun in this country unless they can show that their ownership of such a weapon serves the security of our free state, and such ownership must be integrated into a well-regulated official organization. There are certain limits to the Second Amendment regarding when and why guns are used. On June 25, 2022, Joe Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act which includes money to provide for red flag management and catch these threats before they happen. Even with the government attempting to help, some of the laws they are putting into place aren’t enough. The youth of our generation have taken it into their own hands and “have learned to become overly responsible neoliberal agents of change with limited political influence and access to power” (Bent 2019). A survivor of a school shooting, Cameron Kasky from Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was inspired to start a campaign called “March for our Lives” four days after the shooting at his school on March 24, 2018. The goal is to educate people on gun violence and the signs of it. These marches brought attention and promoted action. Many people were made aware of the issues, and news stations everywhere broadcast when students walked out of their school to protest. So far the youth have done a better job addressing gun violence than any political figure has.

People too often talk about the reports of these gun violence incidents stemming from what they see on TV and video games. “Indeed, even parents see movie depictions of gun use as acceptable for viewing by adolescents over the age of 14 if the violence is viewed as justified for the defense of self or others and does not display the upsetting effects of the violence” (Jamieson and Romer). Most of these problems stem from how people were raised and what they were exposed to as a child. “In addition to shooters being virtually all male, Kathryn Farr writes, ‘The great majority of adolescent school shooters are also white and heterosexual — bearers of triple privilege by birth’” (74). They idolize excessive uses of violence, display an avid interest in guns and other weapons, brag about their violent desires and intent, and suffer an emasculated sense of personal entitlement” (Bent). There is definitely a stereotype that is correlated with these types of shootings. People need to focus on how these children are being raised and not the media. They are being shown things at a young age that impact them for the rest of their lives. “Furthermore, TV violence alone is an unlikely source of the association since it did not continue unabated over the study period and was less related to trends in firearm homicides. Thus, our measure of the relative use of guns is the most theoretically stringent measure of the cultural influence of entertainment media on this behavior” (Jamieson). We are pointing our fingers at the wrong thing and not focusing on the problem at hand. That is difficult to solve, what these kids see when they are young impacts their decisions as teenagers and adults.

Something that needs to be taught to everyone, whether they own a gun or not, is gun safety. Teaching these lessons at a young age will teach children early on what and what not to do with a gun, when and where to use it, and how to safely store it. This information used to be taught in schools, but ever since the funding stopped, it hasn’t. Such a program would help prevent accidental gun deaths, as well as teach children how to safely disarm someone with a gun. Since gun safety classes ended, there has been a major decline in students actually using them. “During the pandemic, accidental discharge of firearm deaths by children jumped up 31%” (MacDonald-Evoy). Having these procedures taught in classrooms will prevent accidental suicides and and show kids how dangerous guns can be, so if they ever come into contact with one they know how to safely use it.

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

Playlist for Change

“Where is the Love” by The Black Eyed Peas (2003)

This song is very emotional in terms of how wars and climate change are affecting the youth of our nation. It is about acceptance for race, color, and religion. “People killin’, people dyin’ Children hurtin’, hear them cryin’.” This line from the song describes the hatred in the world right now. In 2003 when this song was released, violent events were going on all over the world. Between six and eleven million people around the world took to the streets to protest the war in Iraq. The war in Iraq was instigated by the US Military and used weapons of mass destruction to try to kill Sudam Hussein. In the process, they killed 112,000 innocent people. “It exceeds the 112,000 violent civilian deaths reported by Iraq Body Count” (“War in Iraq”).

“Youth of the Nation” by P.O.D (2001)

This song is from the point of view of a student who has first-hand experienced a school shooting.

Every day, the same routine before I skate off to school
But who knew that this day wasn’t like the rest?
Instead of takin’ a test, I took two to the chest
Call me blind, but I didn’t see it comin’
Everybody was runnin’, but I couldn’t hear nothin’ except
Gun blasts, it happened so fast
I don’t really know this kid, though I sit by him in class
Maybe this kid was reachin’ out for love
Or maybe for a moment, he forgot who he was
Or maybe this kid just wanted to be hugged.

This quote sympathizes with mental health. The song talks about how nobody suspects a thing because the shooter was the quiet kid in class, and the student that was shot tries to come up with possible motivations. This song mainly talks about the struggles of being a young kid in a world falling apart, where the adults’ decisions now will affect kids growing up in this world.

“Pumped up kicks” by Foster the People (2010)

This entire song is about a school shooting and a kid’s plans to shoot up his school. “Robert, the main character and narrator of the song, dreams of violence towards his rich classmates and peers. The song details his plans and ambitions for a school shooting, diving deep into the causes of his emotions.” During a 2011 Rolling Stone interview, Foster said: “I was trying to get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid.” It’s a very real song about this epidemic of school shootings. The song was before its time since there weren’t as many school shootings as there have been since 2010. The song clarifies how easy it was for somebody like Robert to access a gun, because he took it from his dad. This song almost brings as much attention to the kid’s mental health as the violence he caused with the gun, which is yet another factor to be taken into consideration. Unfortunately, many new laws in place are decreasing access to mental health resources.

“Children’s Story” by Slick Rick (1989)

This song doesn’t necessarily have to do with school shootings, but it does bring up gun violence as a cautionary tale for children, especially children in minority neighborhoods whose enemy in this case is the cops.

Pointed at her head, he said the gun was full of lead
He told the cops, “Back off or honey here is dead”
Deep in his heart he knew he was wrong
So he let the lady go and he starts to run on (Uh-huh).

Slick Rick uses these lyrics to show that the person in the song is a good guy who got mixed up in the wrong situation. He is using the gun as a negotiation between him and the officer. He never intends to actually shoot the lady. He just wants to be let go. These kids are so young, and because of where they grew up and who they know, gun access is really easy for them. Kids are able to access guns at a younger age.

“Jeremy” by Pearl Jam (1992)

This song is actually based on two real stories. “The song takes its main inspiration from a newspaper article about a 16-year-old boy named Jeremy Wade Delle from Richardson, Texas who killed himself in front of his English classmates at Richardson High School on Tuesday morning of January 8, 1991, at about 9:45 am.” The other story is similar, except more people were hurt. “I actually knew somebody in junior high school, in San Diego, California, that did the same thing, just about, didn’t take his life but ended up shooting up an oceanography room” (Vedder). The song is very emotional and can definitely be translated to today’s situations with school shootings. It can also open up someone’s eyes to see that they are mentally hurting a person without knowing it.

Clearly, I remember picking on the boy
Seemed a harmless little fuck
Ooh, but we unleashed a lion
Gnashed his teeth and bit the recess lady’s breast
how could I forget?
And he hit me with a surprise left
My jaw left hurting, ooh, dropped wide open
Just like the day, oh, like the day I heard.

The story isn’t told through the point of view of Jeremy but through the kids who were picking on him.

Video created by Madison Jernigan (2023)

Now the question is, what can we do to solve gun violence?

There are over 30,000 deaths a year as a result of gun violence and it will be difficult to fix any of this without the power of the government. Younger people have the drive to change things, but because they don’t have any power, all they can do is convince the government of what it already knows. If we can ever get the government on board, we need to make guns less accessible. That means not selling them in places like Walmart or making the background checks so easy to pass. Educating people on gun safety is necessary so they know how to handle a gun correctly if they ever come in contact with one. The government needs to realize that gun violence is a public health problem that is preventable and recognizable. Mental health resources should also be easily accessible to anyone struggling, and they shouldn’t cost as much as they do now.

We will only ever see a solution if the government gives more rights to children than guns.

Politics
Gun Violence
School Shootings
Government

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Madison Jernigan
Music & Culture IRL

Written by Madison Jernigan

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