Proven Tips to Help Prevent Mass Shootings
In recent years, it’s become terrifying the amount of mass shootings in the world, and some of them are now happening in England, which has far less of a gun culture than abroad.
But despite the panic caused by both the event (and often the media), there are proven ways to help prevent these awful tragedies, in most cases. Forget ‘political correctness’. Nothing excuses anyone shooting anyone, but it helps to know some causes, to stop the same happening again.
Vote for Peace
There is never any excuse for mass shootings. But often they have political or religious hatred causes. That’s not to say the shooters are justified, but voting for parties that promote peace (rather than create more hatred by arming countries to bomb children’s hospitals etc) helps to foster world peace.
After the tragic shootings on Sydney beach, the Israeli Prime Minister immediately began to put blame on politicians, the same happened with President Trump in the USA, when Charlie Kirk was shot.
Neither does anything to help prevent the same happening again. Politicians have responsibility to bridge divides, not create more hatred and division.
Prevent Bullying (in schools and workplaces)
Many teenagers who participate in school shootings often have a history of being bullied at the school they have carried out their crimes. So preventing bullying is obviously one way to prevent such tragedies happening again. And remember bullying can also happen in the workplace.
Listen to Warnings (they’re usually there)
One surprising fact from research, is that nearly all mass shooters give a good indication of what they are about to do, whether that’s telling someone, or posting on social media.
So better monitoring can help to prevent further shootings. Register your school at Sandy Hook Promise, to take online courses to prevent shootings.
One way to help is for parents to use BARK app: This tool scans messages and posts (without being too intrusive) for talk about bullying, self-harm, threats and talk about weapons). In the USA (where it was invented), this app has prevented at least two school shootings.
Know the Links Between Animal and Human Abuse
Nearly all serial killers (and this includes mass shooters) have a history of cruelty to animals (most people who own lots of guns are hunters).
Animal Legal Defense Fund has more information on this, which is a huge factor in preventing crimes to both animals and humans. You can take free courses to learn more.
Don’t Encourage Play with ‘Violent Toys’
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.
Don’t Let ‘Evangelists’ Promote Guns
In Guns We Trust is a book by the New England borough chief on duty, when one man shot dead 20 children and 6 staff at Sandy Hook school, before shooting his mother dead, and then himself.
The author argues that tragedies occur due to 100 million people in one country owning guns, often promoting ‘white Christian evangelism’ (one of the victims was a young schoolteacher who protected the children, herself the daughter of immigrants).
What’s surprising is that nearly all mass shootings are from people who are registered gun owners, meaning they passed all the ‘safety checks’, so obviously a cultural change is also needed. The killer actually used guns belonging to his mother, who had bought them to train her son to shoot.
The author asks in this book how his Christian faith (rooted in Jesus’ call to ‘turn the other cheek’) got hijacked? He also introduces us to Christians who would never own a gun. Like the residents of an Amish village whose residents forgave a killer of schoolchildren, and even helped to pay for (and attend) the funeral of the gunman, to help his bereaved family.
Most of us could never imagine being that forgiving – but they were following the real teachings of Christ. The killer’s parents even forgave their son due to the Amish example, and his mother spent the rest of her life, campaigning against gun violence.
The author also 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.
