17 year old Dimitrios Pagourtzis entered Santa Fe High School on Friday and opened fire on his classmates, killing 10 and wounding 10 others. Details about the shooter's life and character are slowly coming out, including his plans for the shooting. Files on his cell phone and computer have shown that Pagourtzis intended to steal weapons legally owned by his father and commit suicide after the rampage. However, he was unable to follow through with the final step of his plan and is now being held in a Galveston County jail. Law enforcement has been speaking with Pagourtzis's classmates in an attempt to uncover a motive, and has received contradictory evidence so far. A fellow member of the high school's football team stated that only Thursday he had been joking around with the shooter and never suspected he could be capable of mass murder. Other classmates said they weren't surprised when they heart it was Pagourtzis who committed the shooting, saying that he always seemed strange and different and was bullied in school. Officials working on the investigation have not discovered any red flag warning signs like those that were present in the case of the Parkland shooting earlier this year.
This latest school shooting can be connected and compared to almost every shooting in American history. The ease with which people are able to legally able to purchase weapons created with the intent that they would be used to kill, whether it be game or enemy soldiers overseas, must cease. I believe that it is impossible to completely outlaw guns and that a move that bold could possibly lead to a rise in the popularity of bombings. However, there must be a stronger background check system in place to protect the lives of students, workers, and church and club goers. The strength that a single sentence written two centuries ago holds over modern society is scary. When the founding fathers penned the 2nd amendment, they couldn't even dream of a weapon that could be reloaded so fast that it would be capable of mass killing. "Protect our freedom" cannot be used as an excuse to bear life threatening arms anymore. Freedom to be killed by our fellow citizens cannot be called freedom at all.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/19/612468377/what-we-know-about-dimitrios-pagourtzis-the-alleged-texas-high-school-shooter
I believe that morals start at home and that this is definitely a mental illness issue. It is so sad that mentally ill people will commit copy cat crimes and kill people. It makes me wonder if his parents saw any warning signs.
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