A video circulated on TikTok that pressured students across the nation to fear for their lives. In black, bold letters, it listed all the high schools that were supposedly going to suffer from mass shootings.

Although the widely known list was created by an 11-year-old convicted felon who made a written threat of a mass shooting and claimed it to be a”joke,” the issue of gun violence is as prevalent as ever.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in the United States, from 2020 to 2024, there’s “nearly an 8% increase in gun violence, which is making students, faculty, and parents alike question the safety of attending schools in America.

According to the Pennsylvania Association of Pupil Services Administration (PAPSA), there have “already been 219 school shootings” in K-12 schools in 2024.

“It is a devastating and unacceptable tragedy. Schools should be places of safety, always,” said Head of Upper School Anna Alldredge.

Most recently, Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, was targeted, with two students and two teachers wounded and nine more injured, named the deadliest school shooting this year.

Similar to the list mentioned previously, which was created by an 11-year-old, other individuals on digital platforms such as Instagram, X, and TikTok created and spread threats and rumors about attacking specific schools.

Most who were caught issuing threats are younger than 21, and although these teenagers post empty threats as a joke, police officers and sheriffs across the country are treating the threats seriously.

“You don’t stand up on an airplane and yell, ‘Hijack’ You don’t walk into a movie theater and yell, ‘Fire.’ And you don’t get online and post that you’re going to shoot up a school,” said Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chit-wood in a video on social media.

Authorities are treating teenagers and children who post these threats as adults, holding these students accountable by threatening to release mugshots and full names.

Officials are calling upon parents to inform their children based on posting on social media and to treat their digital footprint carefully.

“[What students are posting online] could make them a victim of a crime or worse, and on the flip side of that, you can end up with a police department officer knocking on your front door arresting your child,” said Chitwood.

High schools across the country are increasingly creating bans on using phones in classrooms—and although bans are for educational purposes and leave students having no way to contact parents in case of a school shooting on campus, families wonder whether bans will cause more harm than good.

“I think that if a threat has been confirmed, and students are on campus and are in some form of lockdown, [students] should definitely have their phones,” said senior Kelly Caufield, a Dos Pueblos High School student who was on campus for a false shooter alarm.

In the recent election, some voters are choosing based on which candidate supports the Second Amendment and who is against it.

Individual states are allowed to choose how strict the regulations around guns are, and due to this, we are able to see the real impact of gun regulations.

States in the South, where gun regulations tend to be looser, are found to experience higher levels of gun violence.

States like North Carolina–which has the highest rate of school shootings–are known for its loose gun laws.

On the contrary, states that have the strictest regulations on firearms–such as New York and California–have experienced fewer school shootings in the past decade.

While the United States has experienced a massive increase in school shootings in the past few years, we find that it is not happening in all other countries.

The U.S. is among three countries where the right to own a firearm is embedded in the constitution, making it one of the easiest countries to acquire a firearm.

Recently, San Marcos High School was placed under lockdown due to a gun threat issued by a student, which was later intercepted by school faculty not soon after Dos Pueblos High School was also put into lockdown after receiving a school-wide threat via social media.

“I personally didn’t really feel scared because [the active shooter] had been confirmed a rumor, but I had two friends whose parents didn’t let them go to the pep rally because of the supposed threat,” said Caufield.

When this lockdown occurred in early September, the Santa Barbara Unified School District stated that the Dos Pueblos threat was only one of the six potential threats of school violence in the past six weeks.

After the threats were handled accordingly, the district released a statement saying, “All [Santa Barbara Unified School District] schools have safety protocols to ensure students and staff are safe as incidents arise. We know how difficult it can be to receive messages like this. The safety of our students, teachers, and staff is a top priority.”

While the issue of gun violence might not seem prevalent in Santa Barbara, the problem has touched the lives of many living in our county. Junior Peyton Gimbel shares how gun violence has altered her life experiences.

“I specifically went to my preschool because of the Sandy Hook shooting. My parents chose to enroll because it was very well guarded and in a gated community where you had to have identification to even enter. So I think [gun violence has] definitely influenced where I’ve gone to school,” says Peyton.

In a nation where gun violence is among one of the most discussed topics, there has been a great deal of discourse over the next steps moving forward. Research conducted by the Pew Research Center found that approximately 52% of the public supported the right to bear arms, while 46% supported tighter gun restrictions.

It is evident through this divide that unless there is a drastic change, the right to bear arms will continue to be a fundamental right, so without getting rid of guns, how can we reduce the number of school shootings?

School safety experts comment that raising the age limit on gun restrictions would cut back on gun violence. Everytown reports that “Eighteen to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 years and older.”

A contributing factor to raising the age limit on gun restrictions is the evidence that the majority of school shooters are under the age of 21. While raising the age limit on gun restrictions may aid in the efforts to stop gun violence in schools, some school shooters–for example, the case of the 14-year-old boy who killed four in an Atlanta high school–garner access to firearms through guardians.

A step towards the reduction of gun violence is the spread of education on the safe storage of firearms. Local efforts to ensure the secure storage of firearms include the Santa Barbara Safe Firearms Storage Ordinance, which requires “firearms to be stored unloaded in a locked container or with a California-approved firearms safety device, such as a trigger lock or cable lock,” as KSBY reports.