School Shooting Research Paper

There are multiple violent crimes that exist in the world. One of them is the act of school shootings. Less than halfway into the year of 2018, the United States have experienced over 20 school shootings so far. That is one for every week in the year. In addition, there have been over 300 school shootings in the past 6 years. With all the shootings that have happened, many people long to find a solution and ask themselves, “What is the answer to preventing violent crimes such as school shootings?” Some believe that guns are the problem and the solution is better gun control. Others believe that mental illnesses are the problem and the answer is to fund better mental health care. Targeting mental illnesses will not prevent school shootings because …show more content…
A study reported by The American Journal of Psychiatry states, “The combination of medication noncompliance and alcohol or substance abuse problems was significantly associated with serious violent acts in the community, after sociodemographic and clinical characteristics were controlled.” (Mulvey) This shows that mental illnesses on their own are not a leading factor of violent crimes such as school shootings. The problem is not simply people with mental illnesses but rather, those people who have dependence on a certain substance such as drugs or alcohol. When people abuse drugs and/or alcohol or use them incorrectly, they are more likely to commit violent crimes. However, instead of trying to treat drug and/or alcohol addiction, people assume people with mental illnesses are the ones committing these …show more content…
For example, South Korea has one of the worst mental health problems in the industrialized world. According to an article on ozy.com by James Watkins, “South Korea has far and away the highest suicide rate among the 35 wealthy Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries — almost 40 Koreans fall victim to suicide every day…. up to 28 percent of elderly Koreans are depressed, compared with 10 to 15 percent in the U.S.” However, despite the mental health problem they are facing, they have fewer school shootings. South Korea, among other countries, have put in place restrictive gun laws. An article on usatoday.com by Jim Michaels states that South Korea, compared to the US which has 300 million registered guns, has only 510,000 registered guns. Additionally, only very few citizens can own a gun. These factors have been proven to be effective because there are fewer homicides in the whole country than in the city of Chicago

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