The Second Amendment & High-School Shootings in America

Introduction:

The term 'school shooting' has become instantly recognizable for people all over the world. The term was first used in America for the Enoch Brown School shooting of July 1764; however, it was not until the 1970s that people started understanding this term as a type of violence rather than a mere news heading. Even though these incidents claim the lives of young and innocent students and seem to tear the very fabric of society that America was built on, such incidents are rare and account for less than 1% of all homicide involving school aged children between the age of 5 and 19 (Kathleen 5). Furthermore, the cause of these incidents is the ill treatment by peers and poor mental health of students who carry out these shootings rather than the availability of arms with which these attacks are carried out. Therefore, the Second amendment of the American constitution, which provides the right to own arms by the public, should not be dissolved in the face of recent school shootings in an attempt to deter such incidents in the future, since there is no proven correlation between the two items.

The Purpose of the Second Amendment:

The Second amendment of the US constitution states:

"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

This original article was first introduced to the American constitution as an extension of the English common law in 1789 under the Philadelphia convention. Certain changes were later made regarding the extension of this right to religious and racial minorities. However, contrary to popular belief the purpose of this law was not to arm the public and promote the stockpiling of personal arms and ammunition but rather to create a state where the people as a whole had the power to continue to protect themselves for the integrity of their nation. Justice Story, appointed to the supreme court in 1811 by James Madison, writes in his commentary that: