Preventing school shootings

The second school shooting in less than two months has increased the urgency of the discussion surrounding gun violence in schools. That’s not surprising, given how these types of crimes were practically unheard of in the Philippines until recently, and given the tragic nature of the deaths of children at the hands of their peers. Already, schools are running active shooter simulations, planning to install steel doors and entertaining proposals to create safe rooms for retreat. However, while it is important to review safety protocols and make improvements expeditiously, it is also important that we consider the effect of our actions very carefully.

School shootings, unfortunately, happen all over the world, and there is a wealth of data to study regarding the efficacy of methods adopted to curb school shootings. It is important to note that based on the available literature, many actions that may seem natural or intuitive – increased surveillance, zero-tolerance policies, even live shooting drills – may harm our youth without any tangible benefits towards the prevention or mitigation of mass shootings. Indeed, as I write this, there has been widespread opposition to live shooting drills from organizations such as the Philippine Psychiatric Association and the Philippine Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, leading to a temporary postponement of the intended drills by the DepEd.

It’s natural to assume that, for instance, a metal detector would have prevented the entry of a gun, or that lessening the privacy of students – through online surveillance, more video cameras, requiring the use of transparent bags – would have prevented the tragedies that occurred. But this assumption is simply not borne out by studies or by experts. Even worse, many of these measures have harmful effects on the mental well-being of students, which is one of the factors which increase the likelihood of a mass shooting event. For instance, a study revealed that most students interviewed who participated in live shooting drills reported feeling unsafe, scared, helpless or sad, while another study stated that active shooter drills were detrimental and an unproven school safety tactic.

It would not be remiss to note that many of these measures originate in the United States, which to this day has the most school shootings by far. When analyzing why such measures arose in the US, it’s important to acknowledge that the gun culture and powerful gun lobby in that country has resulted in indirect and lateral measures against mass shootings that ignore the most direct problem: that guns made it into the hands of the shooters. By the time guns reach the hands of a child, much less the school premises, there has already been a gross failure of both the system and responsible adults.

The most direct way to prevent mass shootings by students is to prevent children from acquiring guns in the first place. In a recent article entitled “When a child can reach a gun” by Fred Lubang – a disarmament practitioner – he makes the point that “a school shooting… begins when a gun becomes accessible to a child… If a child can reach a firearm, the firearm is inadequately secured or inadequately controlled, regardless of whether it is licensed, privately owned, company-owned, government-issued, stolen, diverted, locally fabricated or smuggled.” While some seek links between the two shootings in online games or social media, the one factual commonality that played an indisputable role in the shootings was that in both cases, the perpetrators were able to get their hands on guns that should have been kept away from them: in the Tacloban shooting, the weapons used were a Glock registered to an aunt who was a police officer of one of the shooters, and a pistol that was registered to a security agency where one of the shooter’s grandfathers had worked as a security guard; in the Zamboanga shooting, the guns belonged to the shooter’s father, a uniformed police officer from the Bureau of Customs.

It’s clear to me that the most immediate focus of the government should be on child access prevention laws and regulations. While the implementing rules of the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act do require some security measures appropriate to the premises for the issuance of a license, the wording is not restrictive enough, nor is its implementation clear. It is important that the ability to secure licensed firearms in a way that will prevent them from being taken by minors should be an essential requirement for the grant of a license and its renewal, and that the authorities/regulators concerned must make actual inspections to make sure this is the case. While several bills have been filed to penalize unsafe storage that leads to minors acquiring possession of guns, of particular note is House Bill 10058, which stipulates mandatory safe storage and sets standards for the same, bans shooting and firearms training for minors and creates gun-free zones around schools.

As for what schools themselves can do, certainly security loopholes must be closed, guards should receive the proper equipment and training and entrance points must be subject to control. But it is also important that we resist the “fortification” of our venues for community and education. Schools should still preserve a welcoming environment.

The community must also be educated on what to notice, such as observable behavior that include threats, stalking, aggression or statements of harming oneself or others. Reporting should also be simple and safe. In American studies that focus on cases where mass shootings were successfully averted, the majority of these were due to students breaking the “code of silence” and informing proper authorities when they heard of the prospective shooter’s plans. This kind of reporting is only possible in an environment where students trust the authorities to do right by them and their peers.

While the most direct way to prevent mass school shootings is to keep guns away from the hands of children, the best way to prevent them is by building a culture where students can ask for help and report a concern without being shamed, where their concerns are taken seriously and where warning signs are responded to by trusted adults before tragedy hits – it is by creating a community where students are seen, heard and supported.