A student is sitting in their English class and suddenly they hear footsteps and police officers banging on doors. They start freaking out, not knowing what is happening or if they are safe.
Gun Violence, and mass killings have been a problem for many years around the world. But in 2023 they were back on the rise with it being the third highest year since 2006 with 37 incidents, and the highest being 2014 with 46 incidents in total, and in 2024 there has already been 4 incidents.
A graph from AP news and USA Today shows the rise of mass killing, or shooting, described as an event where four or more people are killed or injured.
With gun violence on the rise, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has stepped in to help with the problem passing new laws around Illinois with more planned around the corner.
“While we’ve made progress with passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act last year and my efforts through the Chicago HEAL Initiative, more must be done,” said Durbin. “I am committed to building support in Congress for other common sense gun safety reforms like an assault weapons ban and universal background checks, as well as taking additional steps to address gun violence as the public health crisis that it is.”
Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) believes that Illinois should enforce a universal background check on everyone and an assault rifle ban.
Gun violence expert at University of Illinois, Thomas O’Rourke (D-IL), talks about why we should have a universal background check before handing out guns.
“The other ones ban on the violent offenders purchasing guns, and also may issue laws with the issue that’s in quotes, which give police discretion initiated in issuing concealed carry permits,” said O’Rourke. “Some states lately, there was universal background checks were associated with a 50% drop in the house.” We need to pass universal background checks, limits on the size of magazines, and ban assault weapons. The gun lobby spends a lot of money to keep sensible reform from happening, but we cannot give up our efforts when so many innocent lives are on the line. — Bill Foster, Congressmen (D-IL)
O’Rourke believes there are different ways to take on this issue. He talks about upstream and downstream approaches.
“Some schools let’s say a protected downstream approach, rather than a more upstream approach,” said O’Rourke. “That is a background where maybe restrictions or how’s this, there’s a waiting period before you can get it. That’s an upstream of so many of these upstream approaches that you get, you can limit the capacity of the initiative, and say you can’t ever do it but again, I’m one with 20 magazines where you’re basically making machines and things like that.”
MCHS has many measures in place for if a shooting were to happen. One of these is the bluepoint system, this system can be found all around the school and when pulled will directly contact a police station to come straight to MCHS.
Another system in place is when the school does have an emergency, the Freshman Campus has access to our cameras and can radio security to let them know where the active shooter is. The same if something happened to the Upper Campus. One last thing that security has is an app called raptor which will allow them to call police or put the school on lockdown with their phone.
On May 24, 2022, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. This was the deadliest shooting to ever happen at a Texas public school, in part because police waited more than an hour to engage the shooter.
On November 30, 2021, 15-year-old Ethan Robert killed 4 students and injured 7 people at Oxford High School in Michigan. Currently, his parents are on trial for failing to secure the weapon he used in the shooting.
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and injured another 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Survivors of the shooting went on to start Everytown, a group working to reduce gun violence.
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. 20 of the victims being children between the age of 6 to 7 years old, and the other six were staff at the school.
On April 16, 2007, 16-year-old Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. He also wounded another 17 and injured six people before killing himself after. Virginia Tech is considered the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
Superintendent Dr. Ryan McTague talks about how they have quarterly meetings to check to see if the school is still safe for students and staff to be in.
“And part of it is you know, we meet quarterly so we have an actual safety and security community meeting that we have quarterly with the police, fire department, EMS, emergency management services, City leaders,” said McTague. “To really discuss what our security plan is, you know, and really discuss some of the security issues that we face as a community and as a school.”
MCHS also has a plan being put into place called reunification. This is a plan that gives students and staff a place to escape to if a shooting happened outside.
Students and staff express how safe they feel in the school and what they feel could change to make the school more safe.
“I would say our school is as prepared as it can be,” said health and gym teacher Ray Hagerty. I feel like it’s super hard to be prepared to a level to completely stop it right? There are doors everywhere in this place. There are ways that people can get in unless you completely lock down the school. How do you prevent somebody who’s in on it from opening a side door or something like that? — Ray Hagerty, gym and health teacher
“But do I feel we’re as prepared as we can be,” said Hagerty. “I do, in the sense that we know we have the bluepoint system, which is connected right to the police department. We have a head of security who was a former police chief. We have multiple security guards on sides of the building and stuff like that.”
Junior Jordan Calabrese shares why he feels safe at MCHS during the gun violence rise.
“I do, not entirely because there’s not a huge amount of gun violence in our area,” said Calabrese. “Also because the real chances of gun violence coming to a school, especially like ours, is gonna be very low.”
Calabrese goes into what he feels should change to help make the school more safe.
“We’re at a pretty good level. I would say the only real step up would be security officers with firearms themselves,” said Calabrese. “But that may have more repercussions.”
MCHS has taken many precautionary measures to stop a school shooting if one were to happen, but their are still more safety measures that could be in place to keep both students and staff safe. MCHS is ready for a school shooting if one were to happen.
The school goes on lockdown and the students feel safe knowing that there are many measures in the school to keep them safe while the shooting is happening.
