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A student examines his transparent backpack at a school in Florida. Archive image.
1 / 2Photo: John McCall/AP/TT
Total ban on certain types of bags – or requirements for transparent backpacks.
The measures are introduced in more and more school districts in the United States. They aim to prevent students from bringing guns to school, in light of the rise in school shootings in the country.
The choice of school bag can be a way for children to express their personality. But in several places in the United States, it is no longer allowed to freely choose a backpack, as a result of the increase in gun violence in schools.
In some schools, backpacks have been completely banned, in others they must be transparent.
The security measure already had an impact in 2019. In the 2019-2020 school year, backpacks were completely banned – or only transparent ones were allowed – in four percent of the nation’s public schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Since then, significantly more schools and districts have joined. In the past 18 months alone, at least 27 school districts have introduced restrictions on backpacks, writes The Washington Post.
Still hidden?
But among parents and safety experts, voices are now being raised that question the usefulness of the regulations. They describe the bag rules as a game for the gallery that could possibly make adults feel a little safer.
Critics point out that guns can still be hidden and brought into schools, for example between books in a transparent backpack. The regulations are highlighted as an example of something that decision-makers do to avoid major investments in gun control.
But criminologist Alex del Carmen at Tarleton State University in Texas believes that efforts by schools to increase security should not be countered.
– To say that transparent backpacks will make such a big difference that we no longer have to worry about school shootings or threats to a school, that would obviously be an exaggeration, he tells CBS News.
– But to say that it won’t help – we don’t have proof of that either.
More school activities
In the past three years, the number of school shootings has increased dramatically in the United States, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. In 2022, 46 occurred, the highest number since the recounted Columbine High School massacre in 1999, when the newspaper began keeping statistics.
Since 1999, there have been 386 school shootings in the United States. This means that 356,000 students have experience from such events, according to the newspaper.
FACTS Noted school shootings in the US
In March 2023, six people, three of them children, were shot dead at a school in Nashville, Tennessee.
In May 2022, 19 students and two adults were shot dead at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde in South Texas.
In May 2019, two people were killed in a shooting at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.
In May 2018, ten people were shot dead at a high school in Santa Fe, just south of Houston in Texas.
In February 2018, 17 people were killed in a mass shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida.
In December 2017, two teenage students at Aztec High School in New Mexico were shot to death. The perpetrator was also killed.
In October 2014, a 15-year-old boy sent text messages to schoolmates inviting them to a meeting in the cafeteria at the school in Marysville near Seattle in northwest Washington. After shooting at the invitees, he took his own life. Three of those shot died.
In December 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and shot and killed 20 young children and six adults. Lanza then also murdered his mother before committing suicide.
In April 2007, a 23-year-old student shot dead 33 students and staff at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, and then took his own life.
In March 2005, ten people, five of them students, were killed on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. The 16-year-old perpetrator took his own life.
In April 1999, two teenagers shot and killed twelve students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado before taking their own lives.
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