One is random, two is a coincidence, and three is a trend, or so the saying goes.
But it’s the foolish government that would wait for a third school shooting before deciding it must pull out all the stops to prevent another from happening–and do it now.
On Aug. 18, a 14-year-old student at Ateneo de Zamboanga University brought two pistols onto campus and shot a fellow student before taking his own life. The attack came less than two months after two minors opened fire at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, killing three students and wounding at least 20 others.
That second attack, along with a string of other acts of violence on campuses over the past months, tells us the first one was not, in law enforcement parlance, an “isolated incident” but the beginning of an ominous pattern.
There will, rightly, be questions about what drove these children to violence. Authorities are looking into online grooming and nihilistic groups that prey on disaffected young people. Parents should monitor their children’s online lives, and schools need counselors and reporting systems for identifying students in distress. Video games and violent online content deserve scrutiny where evidence warrants it.
Adult kin with firearms
But the most immediate question is this: Where did the guns come from?
In both shootings, the firearms were accessible because they belonged to adults close to the children. In Tacloban, one of the weapons used belonged to a suspect’s police officer aunt. In Zamboanga, one of the firearms was issued by the Bureau of Customs to the shooter’s father, while another was licensed to the latter personally.
Here or anywhere, there will be young people who are angry, alienated, fascinated by violence, or susceptible to destructive ideas. The internet may make those ideas easier to find and spread.
But an adolescent with nihilistic tendencies is not necessarily capable of killing classmates. An adolescent with nihilistic tendencies and easy access to a loaded firearm is another matter entirely.
The experience of pro-gun America is especially instructive. Research on adolescent school shootings in the United States has found that firearms are often obtained from a parent or close relative. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that guns kept in homes be unloaded and locked, with ammunition locked separately.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention likewise states that merely keeping a firearm out of sight or out of reach does not constitute safe storage.
Contagion effect
The same principle must apply in the Philippines, where gaining access to guns is difficult for common folk but far too simple for those with the right connections.
Gun ownership is a privilege that carries a corresponding duty of safekeeping. Congress should establish clear criminal and administrative liability for gun owners who allow minors or anyone else access to their firearms, with penalties proportionate to the harm that results. The punishment must be even graver for state personnel entrusted with government-issued firearms.
A government-issued weapon should never become, by negligence, a child’s weapon.
A 2023 study of adolescent school shootings published in JAMA Pediatrics found that over half of firearms used in such attacks were obtained from family members or relatives, primarily parents.
More telling, a 2015 study by researchers at Arizona State University found significant evidence of a contagion effect in US school shootings: Following an attack, the elevated risk of another shooting lasted an average of 13 days.
A review by researchers at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida examined how media attention may contribute to this phenomenon, including through the notoriety accorded to perpetrators.
Common denominator
Thus, Malacañang was correct to urge caution against exaggeration and sensationalism. The public may thirst for spectacle, but what it needs are cold, hard facts. The media must report the truth without turning child killers into sympathetic figures, or worse, celebrities.
But restraint is by no means a substitute for action.
A whole-of-society response is imperative, as Education Secretary Sonny Angara has recommended. Parents, teachers, communities, law enforcers, and government agencies must all be part of the effort. Campus security protocols must be reviewed. Parents or guardians must take responsibility for their children’s online and offline activities, and schools must strengthen counseling and threat-reporting systems.
Congress, for its part, must confront the common denominator in the Zamboanga and Tacloban attacks: minors who got hold of guns that belonged to adult relatives. Law and policy must focus on preventing that dangerous intersection of vulnerable children and accessible firearms.
The Philippines should not wait for a third school shooting to establish a trend. Two is a warning, but three is too late.