Sandy Hook Elementary School Incident - Case Study Example

 The Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting is also referred to as Newtown Massacre. The incident happened on the December 14th of 2012 in Newtown. Adam Lanza was the person behind the shooting of 20 students and six staff members of the school. It is apparent that before driving to the School, the 20-year-old Lanza had killed his mother at their home. Lanza seems that he realized his actions were not right. This is because by the time the first respondents had arrived at the school Lanza had shot himself in the head. This paper is thus a case study of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in a clear and outright way. The Sandy Hook Elementary School incident is one of the worst mass shooting at a grade school in America. The incident left Americans with the question why could someone be motivated to kill innocent lives of an average age of six. The Newtown Massacre was a sad event though it was not the first mass casualty shooting in U.S as Columbine High School and Aurora, Colorado had similar incidents. New details about Lanza came out in the weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting. One is that Lanza had autism that is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is caused by genes combination with environment. Autism also can affect a person’s social communication and interactions abilities. The National Institutes of Health report has shown that people with autism have defects in several parts of the brain. It is also evident that they also have abnormal levels of serotonin in their brains. The effect of these abnormalities is that they interfere with the normal brain development regulating how the brain cells communicate with each other. Autism had an indirect impact based on Lanza being ridiculed and bullied in his schooling that led his mother to home-school him (Winters, Globokar, & Roberson, 2014). Lanza also had a sensory process disorder that caused him to be more sensitive to touch and noise. The disease made Lanza get upset when others touched him in his childhood. It is apparent that sensory process disorder increased his sensitivity to bullying in a way that resulted to him driving to the school and killing the children. Another leading reason of the Sandy Hook shooting is that Lanza grew in an environment that had firearms. Lanza’ home had two hand guns and assault-style rifle during the incident (Winters, Globokar, & Roberson, 2014). The Sandy Hook Shooting was an eye opener in legal considerations to be undertaken in United States of America. Americans had to look on the gun law that outlines the protection of the right to bear and keep arms as per the constitution. The general provision is that one can use a firearm provided the all requirements aligned to the provision are complied with. As to where a gun is used in crime there is a mandatory prison sentence of 20 years. The other provision is the carrying firearms, though there is no law that limits citizens from carrying of firearms for protection purposes. Schools fall under the exception category as per the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. The Sandy Hooks shooting incidence has led the government to be keen in licensing of fire arms. It is apparent that 31 states had allowed carrying of fire arms without the requirement of a license, but the incident led to the enactment of new restrictions of guns in various states (ViewCaps, 2013). The Brady Handgun Prevention act outlines that those identified to be mental defective and have incompetents should not be allowed to use firearms or access them. If this act was well-understood by Lazans’ mother, she could not have allowed the easy access of the firearm to his son. The incident also has made the government identify homes with children that have mental disorders hidden by their parents. The impact of this search will minimize other incidents of illegal use of firearms in the future by the mental defectives. The law also outlines that no Federal Firearms License should sell to firearms to the minors under the age of 18 years long guns and handguns to the 21 years (ViewCaps, 2013). The white house was involved in the gun control advocacy. President Obama established a task force that would be led by the vice president Joe Biden. The impact of this task force led the president to sign 12 proposed congressional actions and 23 executive orders pertaining gun control on January 16, 2013. The remarkable proposals were an assault firearm ban and a thorough background check on the purchases of firearms. The boss of the National Rifle Association also urged the congress to appropriate money that would be used in hiring of armed police officers in the various American schools (ViewCaps, 2013). The Sandy Hook shootings had a negative impact to the community around. The school was closed abruptly as it was a crime scene. The students went back to school on January 3rd of 2013 at a nearby Chalk Hill Middle School. The Chalk school facility at the time was unused, so it was refurbished before it was used by the students. The task force that was appointed in taking care of the matters of the school, voted for the demolition of the structures for a new school to be built. The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting several lessons to be leant by any other institution in America. One is that danger does not always come from outside. The perpetrator is a former student in the school. It is evident that no one in the school would expect Lanza to return and use a firearm to kill the students he found. (Giannantonio & Hurley-Hanson, 2013) This leads to the conclusion that institutions should not ignore internal disruptions in an effort to search for external threats. Another lesson learnt is that crisis response is critical. The staff in the school had completed training programs on unexpected shooters and bomb threats. The skills played an important role in the crisis response during the shooting. When gun shots were heard first in the school, the principal had the courage to confront the shooter and turned on the intercom system to alert others. Also, the teachers did not collapse as they used the emergency response training by removing the students from the hallways. The skills the teachers obtained enabled them to barricade bathrooms, classrooms and storage closets. The result is that they were able to save more children in the dangerous shootings (Giannantonio & Hurley-Hanson, 2013). Additionally, sustaining hope and staying realistic is another lesson learnt from the incident. Research has proven that in reliving tragedies people tend to look for that one last chance before all hope is lost. After the shootings, people in the school were escorted and they realized not all their hopes had been realized as some of their fellow students had been killed. It is also apparent that the first responders arrived with hope and optimism that they could be of help to save the victims. Organizations are thus encouraged to remain optimistic and have hope in the managing problems (Giannantonio & Hurley-Hanson, 2013). In conclusion, it is apparent that Sandy Hook shooting incident was a historical one in U.S as innocent children of an average age of six years were killed. Lazan, who was a former student of the school, had some psychological problems that affected his decisions. Research shows that he did not involve any one in the undertaking of the killings. Also, he knew what he was doing as he had watched some videos of previous shootings in Norway and at a Virginia school. The shooting led to legal considerations of firearms. References Read More