School shooters. Gun control. Death count. Suicide. Psychopath. The
American news is drowning in these words, but there is no attempt to learn how to
float. Access to guns is incredibly easy in the United States, and background checks
are not improving the restriction of who can buy guns and who cannot. People have
been advocating for rigorous background checks before being allowed to purchase a
gun, but even with doing that, dangerous teenagers would still be able to obtain
firearms. Nikolas Cruz, the teenager responsible for the Parkland Shooting, was
always described as a ‘dangerous person’, he always had an interest in guns and
killing animals, but he was never transported into a mental hospital, because of the
laws in Florida regarding admission into hospitals. To be admitted into a mental
hospital in Florida, one must show violent actions to themselves or others. Nikolas
Cruz only showed violence thoughts, so, therefore, could not seek the mental health
he required. If a rigorous background check were to be enforced, it would have been
useless would have been useless, if Cruz wanted to purchase a gun, considering the
fact that there was nothing on his record, even though he was, in fact, a dangerous
person.
On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two teenage boys,
purchased guns at a local Walmart and later shot and killed 13 students in their local
high school; they are responsible for the Columbine shooting. And although there
was nothing on their records, background checks could have been a significant start
to preventing the Columbine shooting. Eric Harris, the main perpetrator, had a clean
record and was legally allowed to purchase a gun, as he stated in one of his many