Increasing violence in SC causes concern

by Aly G.

In 2022, after the pandemic, South Carolina began to have more violence than the past years. Everyday it seems like there is always a violence crime on the news. When people get home from work, school, or from being out with a family/friend, they come home, turn on the news, and are bombarded with stories of violence. This is causing students to be paranoid and scared.

In the past, we didn’t have this amount of violence but now, there are always shootings, killings, gang relations and property crimes. It feels like it happens everyday, 24/7.

There are some areas in South Carolina that have the most crime. Columbia suffers two of the highest levels of property crime. When violence began to escalate more, there would be threats on social media platforms, threatening to shoot inside schools/ to shoot students.

It would mostly be minors posting threats on social media by giving the information of when it will happen. Schools would be in lock down and have the kids stay in class until they have all buses for kids to ride to go home safely, some schools would have a half day or make it a regular full day but have more police on school campuses for protection in case it really does happen.

“In the last years alone, we didn’t have this much violence, but it increased so much,” Noah E. stated. As he was interviewed and questioned about the violence and school shootings, he stated that the lack of parenting is the main issue. Yes, parents could be the issue for not looking after what their child is doing/not aware of. There are some unexplainable answers of how a minor can have a possession of a weapon or where they get it from in the first place. But manages to sneak it inside the school building with it.

“If I ever get tired of violence, I would move somewhere that has less violence.” said Cheyenne C. As I interviewed Cheyenne, she also stated that “harming other people is unnecessary.” which is indeed true. Harming people won’t solve/help with anything.. Others have said, “When the first school threats appeared, I felt scared but mostly confused about why they are doing this. We’re here to learn, not harm others.” said Liam S. Others have wondered if students think it's a trend or a joke to do this, while others somehow feel “motivated” to follow. We’re here to learn and be who we want to be, not to hurt others. Hurting others doesn’t make anyone feel good or proud about it, it’s inhumane.

We have enough parents who are grieving and angry for the loss of their child, not being able to grow up more and move on with their life. The amount of violence is scary to look at or hear about on the news everyday, to any parent as well. It’s more sad when one gets killed from a shooting or a minor part of a shooting.

“I believe that we should talk about this topic, to hear from others.” Liam S. stated. As I asked him questions if there was a podcast to talk about this, he stated “There are some people who aren’t comfortable to talk on camera but, for the people who want to talk on, like to speak up about those types of situations.”. If there was a podcast to listen to that type of topic, many viewers would want to listen to it and agree to the conversations as the speakers, talk about their opinions or from their perspective.

There are many questions that others would want to ask like, “what has this world become?” but yet, we can’t always get the answers right away.

Many people are just confused, afraid, irritated, angry, all of these emotions towards people who have committed a violent crime, but mostly people who would be part of a shooting.