Updated 3/13/2018
You may have seen the startling statistics that have been posted on social media:
Between 2001—2013 on US soil, 406,496 Americans have been killed by guns. In that same time period, 3,380 have been killed due to terrorism. More recent data from the CDC shows 38,658 gun deaths for 2016, including suicides. The number of gun deaths recorded by CDC researchers has increased for two consecutive years. Excluding most suicides, at least 15,549 people were killed by guns in the United States in 2017, according to data collected by Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a nonprofit organization that tracks media and law enforcement reports of shootings.
In addition, there have been:
We are a country that loves guns and have difficulty passing even the most commonsense laws to make assault weapons illegal or more enhanced background checks.
The nation is still reeling from a shooting at a Parkland, Florida High School last month that left 14 students and 3 teachers dead and injured more than a dozen others. It is the worst school shooting since the Dec. 14, 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed the lives of 20 children and 6 adults. This follows too many mass shooting incidents to count: the Las Vegas Country Music Festival massacre, the Charleston church shooting, Virginia Tech, Pulse Nightclub in Florida, Aurora movie theater, Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood, Texas, and Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting.
The list goes on and on….
Yet little seems to be done by our elected officials except thoughts, prayers and shock that this could happen. Yet it keeps happening.
What needs to be done? It’s possible to protect people’s right to own guns and still have stricter laws that help deter the violence. For starters, how about laws that allow more thorough
background checks and better data collection? A ban on assault weapons? Background checks at gun shows and private sales?
If there was any time where something seemed like it might have gotten done, it was after the Sandy Hook shooting in an elementary school left 20 children and 6 staff members. Nothing was done then, but after the Parkland mass shooting, students were fed up. There have been numerous protests, gatherings and media events where the students are speaking out. Something MUST get done to curb the gun violence and deaths. Students need to feel safe at school and they simply don’t anymore.
Bullying and Gun Violence in the Schools
Many of the school shooting stem from kids with access to guns who are bullied and emotionally unstable, clinically depressed or suffer other mental issues.
This issue is so important to us that we have been partnering with anti-bullying groups and providing help and answers to parents of bullied children. We have a popular free download, Fighting Back: A Legal Guide for Parents of Bullied Children, which provides step by step tips for stopping or preventing bullying as well as letter templates to send to various school officials and employees.
We have also compiled a complete district guide of the anti-bullying contact for every school on Long Island. This contact, as required by the Dignity for All Students Act, is trained in bullying issues and handles complaints about bullying for the school.
Have questions, concerns or want more information for a specific case you think you may have? Give us a call at 516-217-9097.
Goldstein and Bashner
