Ideas to Help Prevent School Shootings
Thankfully these are still rare in England, but they do happen increasingly abroad. Most are due to former students bearing grudges, often from bullying:
- BARK app: This tool scans messages and posts for talk about weapons, bullying, self-harm, and threats. It alerts parents and schools in real time so adults can step in fast, without being too intrusive for moody teens! In the USA, it is has prevented at least two school shootings.
- Clear anti-bullying policies: Schools that have tough, clear rules see less bullying. Strong leadership and training for staff help them spot trouble and respond quickly.
- Safe reporting systems: Some schools use anonymous online boxes or apps so students can flag bullying without fearing revenge.
- Involving parents: Schools that update parents about safety steps and changes build trust and a sense of shared purpose.
- Create safe routes to schools, this helps to prevent children being bullied en-route.
Around 90% of all school shooters warn on social media before. So most can be prevented. Register your school with Sandy Hook Promise, to take online courses to prevent school shootings.
Nearly all serial killers have a history of cruelty to animals. AniCare Manual is used for probation officers, to help children who have committed or witnessed animal abuse. To prevent the cycle continuing.
The daughter of Gwen Mayor (the teacher at Dunblane who died with defensive wounds, holding a dead child in her arms) does not allow her own children to play with toy guns or violent video games. Instead, she teaches them about hedgehogs, her mother’s favourite animal.
And all Dunblane residents adore local boy Andy Murray, who with his brother was at school, at the time of the shootings. Due to his tennis success, they appreciate that their town has now been put on the map for a different reason, and remembered for some happy events.
A Book on Evangelicals, Politics & Firearms
In Guns We Trust focuses on the USA, but is a book relevant to England too, in a world increasingly scared by gun violence. When you have over 100 million people in one country owning guns, you get tragedies like the Sandy Hook shooting, when a gunman shot dead 26 people (20 children, 6 staff) at a primary school in New England (he had also shot his mother dead, before shooting himself).
One young teacher (Victoria Leigh Soto – the daughter of immigrants) was just 27, who died by placing her body in front of the children, to try to save them.
The American killer’s gun had been legally bought by his mother. And all UK mass shootings have been carried out by licensed gun owners. They passed all checks needed to carry guns, before their crimes.
Millions of Americans also hunt animals. President Trump sons are big game hunters and in 2011 killed a buffalo, leopard and elephant (they were seen smiling, the infamous photos including one holding the cut-off tail of the dead elephant). Trump does not hunt, but when in power relaxed laws on trophy hunting imports.
What’s This Book All About?
It’s an unsettling investigation into the ‘unholy trinity of so-called ‘white evangelicals’ who fuse the Gospel of the Bible with guns (something that Jesus Christ would never use) in order to ‘bear arms, and create politics that stands in the way of preventing school shootings and more.
The author has personal experience of the Sandy Hook shootings, as he was the New England bureau chief on the day it happened. He asks why it is that ‘white evangelicals’ are more likely than other Americans to own weapons, and how did his own Christian faith (rooted in Jesus’ call to ‘turn the other cheek’), get hijacked?
But he also introduces us to Christians across the world who would never own a gun (think of the Amish village whose residents forgave a killer of schoolchildren (which led his parents to campaign against gun violence) and even helped pay for (and attend) the funeral of the gunman, to help his young widow and family.
Most of us could never imagine being that forgiving – but they were following in the real teachings of Christ. He even meets activists who are ‘beating guns into garden tools’, and nuns who bought company stock, so they could force a gun manufacturer to do more, to prevent gun violence.
William J Kole is an award-winning veteran journalist who has reported worldwide, and also served as bureau chief in Vienna and New England. A former lay missionary for the Assemblies of God and worship leader at churches in Europe and New England, he also served as board president of an international Christian relief agency. He lives in Rhode Island, USA.
