On Feb. 14, 2018 a nineteen-year-old gunman went into Stoneman Douglas High School and murdered 17 people. It was the third deadliest school shooting in American history. There has since been a significant cry for Congress to take action and do something so that a school shooting like this never happens again. A call for Congressional action on gun control has been advocated for by students who were affected by the shooting. I greatly admire the young people who want to take action to help better their community; it seems many teenagers and people nowadays feel that sharing a link on Facebook is all they have to do to show they care about an issue. I believe that these students have the best intentions; however, I believe that gun control is starting at the middle of the actual problem. There should be more expansive background checks, but I don’t think that will ever fully address the issue at hand. Even if a person is stopped from obtaining a gun, there is no stopping that person from committing acts of violence in other ways. The deadliest domestic terrorist attack in Oklahoma City was carried out with a bomb in a truck, and there was the recent attack in New York City where 8 people were killed by a truck.

The core question at hand is why would anyone commit such a despicable act of violence in the first place? The school shooter Nicholas Cruz was a very troubled teenager. He was an orphan who had recently moved into a family friend’s home, and when he became unhappy at the first home, he moved to another home in Broward County, Florida. He posted on Instagram about killing animals along with images of himself with weapons. Cruz was expelled from school for bringing ammunition in his backpack, and he threatened many students with acts of violence. Cruz was also reportedly abusive to his ex-girlfriend.

There were so many warning signs that Cruz was planning to commit an act of violence. Cruz isolated himself from people, a behavior typical to violence-prone individuals, because they lack a community that they can to belong to. Having no friends in school, not being involved in sports, church, or any other extracurricular activity makes someone like Cruz isolate himself from the world. In today’s age where do lonely people with no sense of community isolate themselves to? It is usually the dark corners of the internet, where a developing mind becomes desensitized to acts of violence and is normalized to the degradation of women. All of this becomes increasingly detrimental to one’s character. Society today is hyper individualistic— people believe that the only thing they need is themselves. They don’t need family, religion, or any collective identity. As long as they are content and independent with their own lives they will be satisfied. This results in a moral compass that is skewed to be only self-satisfactory.

A recent school shooting was stopped because a grandmother noticed that her grandchild had a notebook with plans to commit a mass shooting. Where was that person in Cruz’s life? Where was the pastor, coach, teacher, or family member? Where was the person who could sit him down and ask, “hey Nick you seem down lately want to talk about it?” So, what can someone like me or you do? It may seem like this is a problem that is deeply rooted in society and that nothing will ever change. I think the solution relies on you and me in making a change. People need to start small and invest in order to build their own communities first. Volunteer, attend church, spend time with family, and sign up for activities. Reach out a helping hand to people who need it. If you know someone like Cruz who you know is going through a rough time, reach out and see there is anything you can do to help them. Laws can change as they always do, but if we really want to make a change, we need to begin by investing in the moral character of the community we belong to.