April 20 th, 2000: A Carine Wilson High School student attacks four others and a teacher at knifepoint in Orleans, Ontario, coincidentally on the one-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

September 13 th, 2006: A gunman identified as Kimveer Gill enters Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec and kills one, injuring 19 others. During a shoot-out in the cafeteria with the Montreal Police, he is shot fatally.

While extreme violence in schools is by no means an everyday occurrence, the above mentioned incidents have garnered a considerable amount of media attention in Canada due to the degree of violence involved, or how shortly after the Columbine High School massacre they occurred. The most recent occurrence at Dawson College has again brought up an important question: how does this happen? What are we going to do about gun violence in Canada? What motivates such a senseless and brutal act of violence?

An immediate reaction to these acts of violence is to question the laws we have in place to prevent such incidents. Questions have been raised about the gun registry again and about whether or not the weapons used at Dawson College were legal. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that current legislation surrounding guns did not prevent the incident and that “we’ll try to find more effective legislation in the future.”

The gun registry was implemented in 1995 with the Firearms Act, requiring gun owners to be licensed and registered. It was initially supposed to cost about two million dollars to put into practice, but has thus far cost over 90 million dollars, and a lot of taxpayers believe it should be dismantled. Since Kimveer Gill legally purchased the weapons he used at Dawson College, public opinion is changing on whether or not even stricter gun control laws should be put in place.

Are laws enough to prevent violent action from occurring in society? Certainly, legislation does what it can to prevent dangerous firearms from being used in the country, but it cannot stop someone from pulling the trigger on a legally owned gun. Laws can be created to deal with individuals who have committed violent acts, but can laws stop violence from happening?

Violence anywhere in society is distressing, but particularly in schools. Schools have always been perceived as a safe place for young people, and incidents like this shake us to the core. The four examples listed above are not a complete list of extreme violence in Canadian schools. Incidents have occurred in schools around the country for decades, but it is the terrifying increasing frequency and intensity of these rampages that has Canadians demanding a solution.

While legislators and the government have been given the immense and daunting task to provide a solution for the violence in our society, I believe that it is an unfair burden. We must individually reflect on the role violence and guns play in popular culture and examine the effects this has on our lives. As communities and as individuals, it is important that we understand the way we treat violence and violent behaviour and assess what is and what isn’t working in order to make a change and a difference. Laws and social programs can only be effective if citizens are willing to change the way violence exists in our culture.

What are your feelings on violence in schools and the shooting at Dawson College? Blog it!

Links:

CBC News In-Depth: School Shootings

National Clearinghouse on Family Violence: Youth and Violence

CBC News In-Depth: Dawson College

CBC article: Harper Pledges "More effective legislation" to prevent gun rampages