Echoes of the Florida School Shooting
As the world celebrated and shared love gifts on February 14, being Valentine’s Day, a troubled teenager chose to ‘gift’ bullets to his former schoolmates. Armed with an AR -15 rifle, Nikolas Cruz, 19, stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and opened fire on the students like a hunter on a mindless games hunt, killing 17 people – 14 teenagers and three adults, and injuring 15 others in the process.
Nikolas, a former student of the school expelled for some disciplinary reasons, arrived Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shortly before dismissal in an Uber taxi, and had told a freshman student who encountered him at the hallway while loading his assault rifle; “You’d better get out of here, things are gonna start getting messy.” And, things did ‘get messy’, as Nikolas thereafter launched one of the deadliest mass shooting on a school in U.S history. Bringing to 18, the number of school shootings in the U.S, this year alone! - according to ‘Everytown for Gun Safety’, a gun control pressure group.
Australia applied a stricter gun policy in 1996 and it paid off, after a 28-year-old man named Martin Bryant, armed with a semi-automatic rifle walked into a café in Port Arthur and opened fire, killing 35 people Minister at that time, John Howard, knew he had to do something urgently to forestall a reoccurrence and ensure a safer Australia – for Australians and the drafting of the ‘National Firearms Agreements’ one month later, which banned ownership of automatic, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, drastically; restricted legal ownership of firearms and instituted a compulsory buyback of all banned guns already in people’s possession, among other measures. In that single buyback exercise, Australia was able to mop up about 650, 000 guns nationwide thus, solving a major problem that almost engulfed them.
Should America toe the same path as Australia? Only time will tell. One thing is sure; the recent killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has heightened the public outcry and demand for stricter gun control, even leading to street protests and re-election threats. Hopefully, this would end the long U.S. debate on gun rights which was re-sparked in December 2012, after a gunman opened fire on Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children, all under the age of liberal gun policy, which is backed by the second amendment of the American constitution, has put America in Valentine’s Day massacre appears a turning point for stricter gun policies, safer schools and a safer U.S.