Wednesday afternoon, a total of 19 students were killed when a fourth year college student at Kerch Polytechnic College walked through the doors of the building and opened fire on his fellow classmates. The shooter, Vladislav Roslyakov, starting shooting at students in the cafeteria and continued throughout the school. At the time there were reports of home made bombs that detonated in the cafeteria as well, eye witnesses, students, and people nearby the college claimed these reports to be true. The alleged shooter, according to an acquaintance, was reported to be extremely introverted and a loner that expressed interest in the 1999 Columbine school shooting along with a negative view towards the college. Videos from the schools security cameras show Roslyakov dressed similarly to one of the Columbine shooters, Eric Harris, he also committed suicide in the schools library, the same place as the Columbine shooters committed suicide after they finished one of the first mass school shooting in modern times.
This mass shooting has brought up multiple questions already just in the last few hours since it happened. Should these outwardly expressed interest have been questioned earlier? Why did Roslyakov go on this shooting rampage? How did Roslyakov get into the school with a gun and explosives?
The more I read about the shooting, I found out that the school had installed metal detectors at the entrance but according to students at the college, since many students had metal objects such as keys and other school supplies the metal detectors were generally ignored whenever they would go off. In addition the school did not have a security guard despite the local governments request for them to hire one. This brings up the debate of the usefulness of metal detectors that is popular in the United States on whether or not installing them in public schools will help prevent school shootings, even though in this case no one was monitoring the metal detectors. My question is that after this shooting, will this change some peoples perspective on gun control? I personally hope this tragic event can help change the view on gun control around the world before another tragedy happens.