A Race to Prevent Teen Violence
“Since 2013, there have been at least 173 school shootings in America — an average of nearly one a week.” (Everytown for Gun Safety, paragraph 1). Everytown for Gun Safety has been tracking this information since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that occurred in 2012. This information is an alarming wake up call for parents of teenagers, who fear the possibility of their children being victims of school shootings caused by teen violence. The leading causes of teen violence are controversial topics, however, it is greatly believed by some that the main causes are bullying, begin misunderstood, and having parents that have given up on them.
It is imperative that we understand the causes that lead up to teen
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(AOA paragraph 1) which in turn can never be taken back. It is sad, when I hear about teens, which have bullied others online and later repented of the things that they posted, but are unable to take those comments back because they have been put for others to see. In addition to verbal, and physical bullying the AOA says “there is cyber-bullying in the form of harassing text messages and derogatory posts.” More and more, teens and children have cell phones, tablets and iPads giving them access to social media which is getting harder to track and monitor, so we need to take preventive measures that we are not giving our children the tools to bully others as well as opening the door to being …show more content…
Several cases have been seen in which parents have been aware that their children were having issues but failed to act or help improve the situation. In April 20, 1999, the world was rocked by the news of the Columbine High School Shooting, where two 18 year olds, Dylan Kiebold and Eric Harris killed 23 and injured 20 (New York Times article dated April 21, 1999). In a follow up article, published by USA Today on April 14, 2009 it was uncovered that the teens were not victims of bullying but they were the bullies. They wrote about their bullying in their journals as they planned their suicidal attack. The article described them as, “It’s a portrait of Harris and Klebold as a sort of “In Cold Blood” criminal duo – a deeply disturbed, suicidal pair who over more than a year psyched each other up for an Oklahoma City-style theorist bombing,over-the-top revenge fantasy against years of snubs, slights and cruel, real and imagined.” It makes you wonder how their parents did not see the changes in their teen’s signs of anger or bullying behavior. Susan Kiebold’s mother told DailyMail on February 13, 2016 that when she realized her son was one of the shooters, she prayed that he would kill himself. She also made a very impacting statement, she said, “I think we like to believe that our love and our understanding is protective,
Since 2013 there have been 268 school shootings in the United States alone (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2017). School gun violence is becoming increasingly probable. It is imperative that our government and our citizens come together to create a solution and implement a plan to prevent and stop the occurrence of school gun violence. The solution, for some, is to bring more guns into the picture by arming teachers, principals, and other school officials, or place armed police officers at school sites (LaPierre, 2015). For others, the solution is to make even stricter laws regarding gun use or to get rid of these weapons altogether. These certainly are drastic options; I must say that I do believe the true solution is to increase the focus on mental health services and by extension, mental health awareness. There is simply not enough focus on the mental health of our youth and of our students. Mental health services are the most important step to making schools safer, because this solution touches the entire problem of violence at its root level.
Schools are no longer a safe havens for furthering knowledge; instead violence is occurring at alarming rates. Common occurrences in schools include: physical altercations, severe property damage, and bullying behaviors. According to “ThefutureofChidren.org,” youth violence in schools costs the public 158 billion dollars each year. In this decade, that rate of children inflicting violence on other children and teachers is staggering. Today’s teachers are being trained on gun safety, school lobbies are being installed with bullet proof glass, and counselors hold
Thirteen people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999, thirty-three died during the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, and twenty-seven people, twenty of whom were children no older than seven, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 (Kirk). These name only a few of the larger and most well-known school shooting incidences. In total, 297 people have lost their lives due to school-based shootings since 1980 (Kirk). Although this number may be small in comparison to death by guns overall, these instances are completely unwarranted and it is likely that they could have been avoided or at the very least reduced. These people, college and high school students, teachers, and even children, might still be alive today if our
It gives a broad history of violence and the most common problems in schools up until the beginnings of school shootings. This is the article's’ main focus. The document tells about a few specific instances that have been particularly influential as well as the possible causes. While this is an interesting article that does touch on bullying as a possible cause of shootings, it doesn’t focus on it and has only a few paragraphs and a sidebar dedicated to the topic.
Rampage-style school shootings are rare and tragic events. Although measures of prevention have become more advanced, school shootings have increased in frequency over the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Here in the United States, they have become especially prevalent, with 63 shootings just this year (Acevedo). The aftermath of rampage shootings leaves gaping holes and questions in communities. People try to heal and seek closure at their own pace, but the biggest question most are left with is “why”? In Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, Katherine S. Newman seeks to answer this question. She lays out her research and methodology for studying rampage shootings and comes to the conclusion that shootings are not spontaneous, but rather the build up of psychological issues and negative sociological situations within a student’s community that causes them to seek to regain power over their own lives through a rampage shooting. The story Rampage builds out of the narratives of shooters and their victims along with national data and trends is important because it highlights the places that our societies fail in providing a safety net for deviant students and their peers.
School shootings have altered American history greatly over the past two decades. From 1997 to 2007, there have been more than 40 school shootings, resulting in over 70 deaths and many more injuries. School shoot-outs have been increasing in number dramatically in the past 20 years. There are no boundaries as to how old the child would be, or how many people they may kill or injure. At Mount Morris Township, Michigan, on February 29th, 2000, there was a 6 year old boy who shot and killed another 6 year old girl at the Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber pistol. And although many shootings have occurred at High Schools or Middle Schools, having more guns on those campuses would not be a good environment for children to grow up in.
There has been an average of one school shooting every week in America since the Sandy Hook shooting. On the fourteenth of December, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20-year-old Adam Lanza not only killed his mother in her home, but also twenty children and six members of staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This was to be the third deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The Huffington Post reports that as of 2014, there have been over 200 school shootings. These have resulted in at least 94 deaths and over 156 serious and minor injuries. And, with an issue as emotive and contentious as the murder of school children, the question has been frequently asked: why do school shootings happen?
It is without a doubt that there has been an increase in violent crimes in schools throughout recent years. School shootings continue to become more and more common, especially in North America. Safety concerns for any and all students and staff in schools are at all all time high due to the high number of fatal and non-fatal occurring incidences. Since 2013 to the present, it is estimated that the United States has seen approximately 205 school shootings. Weekly, that is a shocking one shooting on average. Many of these shootings have resulted in the injuries and deaths of multiple of students and staff members. (Everytown Research, 2017) Evidently, school shootings are tragic events that affect so many more people than just the victims. However, these events are also interesting to look at from the psychological and sociological point of views. Through much research, it can be concluded that school shootings are a complex problem that are caused by a mix of improper brain development and societal and media influences which motivate school shooters to emerge. Psychological factors may include struggling with mental illnesses and/or abuse that leads to damaged brain development. Additionally, being bullied and/or the role of the media are examples of sociological factors.
Unfortunately, the notion of schools being a safe place is no longer a trend across American schools. Disturbing mass shootings in the U.S continue to shock the media. A school shooting is when someone attacks a school using a gun. The Secret Service says these shootings are "deliberately selected as the location for the attack". The reasons massacres occur in schools is because of poor security, violence in video games/media, and bullying. Shockingly the U.S. has the most school shootings than any other country in the world. According to the FBI, mass shootings occur, on average, every 2 weeks in the U.S. While the cause of school shootings are sometimes unpredictable, it is a growing issue and they need to be prevented. Most shooters don’t have mental issues, they have a plan to kill, so there is no singular cause that creates violent people. On April 16th, 2007, the most deadly school massacre occurred. Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-two students at Virginia-Tech. As Americans, we no longer should turn on the news and witness these gruesome murders. We try to make sense of these murders, but it’s ineffectual. There are measures we can take as a society to help. The number one question in a school massacre is, "why would a person that has a capable sense of mind even do that?” It is our moral responsibility to fix these issues. In order to stop this problem, we need to find its roots.
The problem with society, is that people tend to wait for the problem to occur before making a change. Troubled children and teens have always existed but unfortunately now we’ve entered into an era where shootings are no longer just seen in action movies, it has now become a reality in our schools. Why do these children end up killing their classmates and why the number of school shootings in America have increased in the past several years? These articles try to give some kind of explanation into why these tragic accidents occur. As well as preventions that teachers, parents, and the community as a whole can partake in. This paper will focus on these two main ideas or themes.
Teenage gun violence is caused by individuals between the ages of 13- 19. This type of violence is at an all-time high. It is becoming a serious problem, especially with such a rapid growth of violent technology displaying more troubled teens leading to more teen deaths involving the
The case of twelve year old Rebecca Sedwick, who leapt to her death is a prime example of what bullying leads to when there is not enough done to stop the bullying nor stiff enough penalties to make sure it is prevented from going this far. She was bullied relentlessly at school, on her phone, and through social media by two young girls. Her mother was left to bury her daughter out of her own pocket even though she took all the necessary steps to protect her daughter. With schools and social media becoming a breeding ground for vicious verbal and sometimes physical attacks, who is responsible for such antics that lead to many victims taking their own lives or having to relocate? With no clear cut on who is financially or criminally responsible, the victim’s family is often left to deal with the unexpected finances and no way of having any closure or piece of mind knowing the responsible party was held accountable. Interventions, financial restitution, and criminal charges should all be mandated if it is found that the school system or parents of the bully did little to nothing to stop the bullying.
Ever since the terrible tragedy at Columbine High School, there has been a numerous list of recent school shootings in America. Youth violence is a major issue in today’s society. Many people dread what causes adolescents to be so violent, committing horrible crimes.
Teen Violence is a big dilemma in today’s society. Violent behaviors usually start from family and peers, as well as teens observing it at there neighborhoods or communities. These behaviors are reinforced by what youth see on television, on the Internet, in video games, movies, music videos, and what they hear in their music. When children are disciplined with severe corporal punishment or verbal abuse, or when they are physically or sexually abused, or when they witness such behavior in their home, it is not surprising that they behave violently toward others. Teen Violence has had such an impact in our youth today that it leads many destructive things and that’s why we have so much violence today.
Topic: School Violence General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To inform what needs to be done to stop school violence. Central Idea: To inform the effects, causes, and solutions of school violence. INTRODUCTION: Since the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado I have been looking deeper into the issue of school violence. The number of extremely violent crimes committed by students has been increasing in the last few years.