A shooter killed four people and injured nine others at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., on Wednesday. The injured have been sent to the hospital and police say they have a suspect—believed to be a teenager—in custody.
Police were called to the school in the morning, as well as five ambulances and helicopters to airlift patients to the hospital. Both Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and US Pres. Joe Biden's administration offered resources and to help coordinate a response.
Barrow County Sheriff Judd Smith said he first received a call about an active shooter at 9:30 a.m., and that "multiple law enforcement agencies and Fire/EMS personnel were dispatched to the high school" just under an hour later.
With yet another school shooting on the books, the country is bound to hear lots of 'condolences' without any promises of concrete change. Even though they know guns are the leading cause of death for young Americans, and that school shootings have risen exponentially, politicians refuse to keep these weapons away from attackers. Thankfully, the Georgia state government has been studying policies on safe storage of guns, so hopefully they will turn it into law.
The problem isn't guns. It's the people behind the guns. The current gun regulations that are already in place aren't working, so why keep trying the same solution hoping for a different outcome? A different, better solution is needed rather than simply banning guns. Mental illness and inadequate security are the root of mass shootings and must be addressed. But the possibility of a real solution is overlooked by making the political discourse anti-gun.
This a uniquely American phenomenon that began only around 1990s. Before then, America still had loads of guns, but society was not so violent and the idea of a school shooting was unheard of. Today, countries like Switzerland have comparable gun ownership rates but no mass shootings. The answer may be that mass shootings began at the same time the pharmaceutical industry began giving millions of Americans antidepressants, which are known to induce suicidal and homicidal tendencies.