Not Another School Shooting

This is what I’ve been talking about. It happened again, and this new incident shares the exact same significant element with the previous two. I have been telling you all, over and over again. Is anyone actually listening? It’s the students’ parents', uncles', or aunts' guns! All three of these kids who went to school and shot their fellow students got their weapons at home—straight from their fathers or aunts; two of them directly from their own fathers. These kids wouldn't be shooting anyone if they didn't have immediate, easy access to firearms within their own households.

Furthermore, I would add that these kids were explicitly taught how to handle and fire these weapons. Handling real-world pistols, recoil management, and making a firearm shoot accurately is not as easy as it looks in video games or Hollywood movies. Yet, these kids knew exactly what to do when they pulled those weapons out of their bags. Go figure how they learned those skills while living under the same roof with parents or aunts who are arguably proud gun owners.

Check the people who own guns! Check how accessible those weapons are to children at home! Penalize the adults who teach minors how to handle real firearms! That’s the true way to go. Focus the attention where it belongs: on the adults, not just on the children.

These kids did not look for weapons from black market gun runners or arms traffickers. They did not steal guns from private security guards. They did not have any contacts with insurgent or rebel groups. They simply took the guns from their own family members at home, for crying out loud! In all three cases so far (and hopefully, we end with just three), the guns were fully licensed and legal firearms. Because these weapons are registered, they can easily be traced directly back to their licenses. PNP, through the Civil Security Group and the Firearms and Explosives Office could track these owners down right now and impose far more stringent safety measures, inspections, and legal penalties to prevent children from ever getting hold of these weapons in the first place.

Instead, the primary culprit that authorities love to look at and pin the blame on is digital access. I have noticed this strong, unhealthy passion for analyzing and connecting real-world violence to whatever video games a student plays, or what sort of social media platforms and online forums he or she is engrossed with. Okay, I’ll give you that for a moment. Maybe playing shooter role-playing games or obsessing over true crime and violence simulation websites pollutes a person's mind and gives them violent ideas. But if this person does not have access to real firearms, he or she would never be able to shoot and kill other human beings. Maybe they would throw a violent tantrum and overturn some furniture. Maybe they would get into a fistfight and punch some of their peers. If they were really committed to violence, maybe they would grab a sharp, pointed object to slash like Jason or Freddy.

I am certainly not saying those violent behaviors are okay. But those actions are relatively less dangerous and far less fatal than going around and randomly pulling the trigger on whoever happens to be standing in a hallway. Tantrums, fistfights, and slashings are all deplorably dangerous, but they won’t kill dozens of people in a matter of seconds. (Back in our time, long before Counter-Strike or mobile gaming, we played with concrete pellet guns. We even played with tiradors to shoot down birds from branches. But we didn’t shoot down our classmates in our classrooms.)

I don’t understand why political figures, policymakers, social advocacy groups, legal advocates, news outlets, and media commentators are always so quick to make a direct connection between a troubled student and video games, social media, or internet culture. Maybe this is just an offshoot of traditional Filipino technoskepticism—this stubborn belief that modern technology is inherently bad, and that children should only be doing what their parents and grandparents did when they were kids. Sorry, Lolos and Lolas, but technology is here to stay, and even the older generation benefits massively from online access every single day.

Besides, major scientific and medical organizations—such as the American Psychological Association (APA)—have consistently found no direct causal link between playing violent video games and committing real-world mass shootings. Millions of youth play violent games globally every day without ever engaging in real-world aggression.

Maybe these adult family members are simply too proud to admit that they and their unsecured guns are the primary cause of this school violence. Maybe they refuse to accept stricter regulations or mandatory gun safes for their cherished firearm ownership. Maybe they just don't want to move an inch out of their comfort zones.

Well, if we continue attributing the cause to the wrong culprit, this problem will never be solved.

Matthew 26:52: ““Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”