Project Summary
For my march madness project the driving question that I followed throughout the process was, “How can we help change the trend of a school shooting happening every 77th day and what progress has been made since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018?” Throughout the project, my guiding question was changing continually, because constantly, the main objective of my project was changing. I specifically wanted to center my project around the Parkland school shooting because my cousins attended that school during the shooting, and they still do. Another reason is because in my time growing up, it was the school shooting that had the most reaction from the public and what sparked up the most activism. After the Parkland shooting the slogan “March For Our Lives” got created and marches all around the States happened. In schools around the country there were walk-outs and 17 minutes of silence for the victims of the crime. People reacted to this event quicker and stronger than anything I had ever seen before. The day of the shooting my family and I were at dinner at an Italian restaurant and the televisions were on and I remember seeing the breaking news headline of a school shooting in Parkland and them still being in lockdown at 6pm. I immediately knew my cousins were at that school and there was no other information given to us. It was the most helpless feeling and I couldn’t even imagine what parents felt like not being able to get any information and the feeling of the parents who lost their kids in the tragic event. At that moment, I knew that what was happening in the United States was not okay on any level and no parent should experience the pain of losing their child because they went to school one day. When I was doing research about Nikolas Cruz, the person who committed the crime at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, there are a lot of mental health issues that Cruz is suffering from, that in many expert’s opinions, if treated, could have prevented the shooting. There is an argument that because there is a lack of mental health help in our country, that it didn’t give Cruz the opportunity to get help. There is also another argument that the NRA and the US government has to change gun laws because it is too easy to get access to a military grade weapon. Another argument that some make is that it is too easy to buy ammunition and that it is the main cause of people able to commit mass shootings. In my opinion after doing research, there is not one single cause, however everything stated above, needs to be reworked because the way it works now is not effective. However, I was most drawn to the mental health aspect and why people are more inclined to do violent crimes more than others. From this project, I have learned that I am really interested in sociology and what environment and the people you are surrounded by in your early ages affects your decisions when you are older. My end result of the project is a documentary showing the news coverage of the shooting and some stories coming from students of Stoneman Douglas. I also represented what has happened since the shooting. Even though it has not been a lot of progress, there have been some, which are steps in the right direction.
