The Second Amendment of the United States 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.” As a part of the Constitution, this statement provides the inalienable right for citizens to have access to firearms, or does it?
A common misconception about the Constitution is that the rights within them are set in stone. However, the Founding Fathers drafted and signed the Constitution with the understanding that the rights can fluctuate as the times change. The question is, should the Second Amendment today have the same interpretation as it did in 1787?
In today’s society, rifts exist between Republicans, who traditionally support full access to guns with no restrictions, and Democrats, who support gun reform with some restrictions. These arguments primarily center around the issue of a statistically rising crime: school shootings.
School shootings date back to before the United States was even a country, with the first recorded on (now) American soil being the Enoch Brown school massacre in 1764. A schoolhouse in the Pennsylvania colony was attacked by three Native Americans, who shot the school master, Enoch Brown, after being “shunned” by the community. The attack resulted in 10 students’ and Brown’s death.
Despite school shootings existing long before the argument of gun control, it was not until the early 2010s that people really began to discuss it. On December 14, 2012, 20 children and six staff members’ from Sandy Hook Elementary School were fatally shot, with the shooter proceeding to take his own life without ever revealing his motive. The shooting was met with outrage and calls for reform, leading to the beginning of the gun control war.
According to Everytown Research, who does live coverage of the number of school shootings within a year, 118 incidents have happened in 2025. That means that as of October 22, the 295th day of the year, 40% of the year thus far has had school shootings.
Since the Sandy Hook shooting, a number of organizations have either been created or grown in popularity to support either side of the political argument.
On the more conservative side, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is a major advocate against gun-control. According to the mission statement on the NRA’s official website, the non-profit works to protect constitutional rights, “especially the right to keep and bear arms.” On the liberal end, the Sandy Hook Promise is at the forefront of pro-gun control advocacy.
The Support Relations Team at the Sandy Hook Promise stated that, “The mission of Sandy Hook Promise is to educate and empower youth and adults to prevent violence in schools, homes, and communities.” .
In response to the prevalence of school shootings, schools themselves have taken efforts to ensure nothing happens to staff and students in their buildings. Schools in Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) go through a “drill week” at the beginning of the year, in which they practice what would happen in situations such as a fire, tornado, earthquake and more. As part of this week, students and staff also practice an Avoid, Deny, Defend Drill in which they prepare to respond to an active shooter.
While active shooter drills existed prior to the Sandy Hook elementary shooting, it was not until 2015 that 95% of American schools implemented the drill as a part of their back-to-school routine.
“In this day and age, unfortunately, (active shooter drills are) part of our society now,” said Linganore High School (LHS) Resource Officer Abby Berisford. “We have to make sure that all the kids are prepared for something if a tragedy were to happen here.”
Despite what schools do to prevent shootings, the crime count continues to rise. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, the number of annual shootings within elementary through high schools has increased from 15 in 2010 to 348 in 2023.
People have turned to the government to deal with the gun violence epidemic, and some things have changed. In 2018, House Rule 4904, the Stop School Violence Act, was passed into law. This legislation allowed for additional resources to go towards training for law enforcement, staff and students to prevent school violence.
“The SRO (school resource officers) specifically go through really extensive training during the summer,” said Berisford. “We actually use the school building, and we actually, like, put ourselves through actual scenarios.”
Outside of this federal act, several states have passed their own gun control laws, with a total of 620 new laws being passed since 2012. In Maryland, these include the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, the Gun Safety Act of 2023 and the Gun Industry Accountability Act of 2024.
Students, who are arguably the ones primarily impacted by school shootings, have different opinions about the current gun control legislation.
“I think (gun control legislation) will (stop school shootings),” said LHS senior, Oluwaseyi Awofisayo. “It’ll decrease the amount of school shootings that we have, because there won’t be that much access to guns.”
Other students feel that guns are not the main concern when it comes to school shootings.
“I think we have a mental health problem, as we saw with prohibitions,” said a senior at Linganore, who wished to remain anonymous. “When we take away bad things, the bad people are still going to have them.”
This political controversy is consistently being discussed, but during times of tragedy is when the conversation reaches its highs. The latest peak came on September 10 at Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk, a famous right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated while at the university to debate with students.
Kirk’s death was met with both outrage and applause. The entrepreneur had infamously made controversial statements, a lot of which stem from his personal beliefs as an Evangelical Presbyterian Church member, yet many cannot help but disagree.
The assassination led to a spiral of arguments between liberals and conservatives over how Kirk should be remembered. Some liberals called out his hateful rhetoric or actively cheered his death, while certain conservatives labeled the activist a martyr.
“People calling him a martyr is definitely an appropriate reaction, as he helped swing Donald Trump’s victory in 2024’s presidential election and has increased the number of youth republican voters by millions,” said political TikTok influencer Lewis Tan. “He advocated for free speech as well as open mic discourse and debate; dying for that cause definitely places him in the position of martyrdom.”
In response to the opposing fronts, select conservatives labeled cheering liberals as hypocrites. Liberals questioned why another shooting that happened the same day at Evergreen High School in Colorado was not being talked about as severely by conservatives.
“I was annoyed that people were only talking about Charlie Kirk,” said senior Jordis Dimmick. “I don’t think he should’ve died, and I understand why people were talking about it, but also people completely ignored the other shooting that happened [on the same day].”
The political controversy continues to produce discourse both in and out of schools. Now, with the government shut down on October 1, even less can be done about the issue. As the government’s sole focus has become the budget, talks of gun control are at an all time low.
It is unknown when the government will start up again or whether congress will ultimately pass gun control legislation, but until then, schools will carry the burden of keeping their staff and students safe.
“If you see something, say something,” said Berisford. “Anything suspicious to you, report it, because you never know if it’s going to lead to something bigger.”
