Hinesville School Shootings

Students were confused because they thought that the shooters were in the school. According to police, the shooter went towards the school but did not actually

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook elementary shootings, the NRA executive vice president, Wayne Lapierre, released a statement in a press conference that spoke of how politicians who wanted to make schools a gun free zone only serve to invite all potential killers that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk. “The only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” was an important aspect of his speech, which emphasized the need to protect the children in schools with guns. He made the point that the President is surrounded and protected by Secret Service agents who are armed. Lapierre wanted to employ the millions of qualified and active retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military,

The Hazelwood School District in Hazelwood, Missouri was one of the districts affected by the events that were happening in Ferguson, Missouri with the deathly shooting of Michael Brown. Hazelwood West High School Special Education Teacher Jodi Schutzenhofer was one of those teachers that found it difficult to try and find an equal balance and understanding of how students within the school were dealing with the grand jury decision. “I did not really have any types of group discussions with my students, but I had several questions like, ‘what happens now?’ and ‘why did they have to burn down the city?’ for which there is really no good answer. I think it was fear that something so awful happened so close to their homes.” And how does one explain

The Columbine High School Shooting allowed for us to see flaws within our police force. Throughout the Columbine shooting, there were many errors made by police. The police didn’t know the killers were dead, so they looked all throughout the school for bombs. They also feared that “the fallen bodies had been booby-trapped with explosives” (CITE), making them move slowly. These missed calculations impacted the lives of many. Dave Sanders, one of the teacher fatally injured, was in the science room bleeding out. The police knew this but didn’t arrive “until nearly 3 pm. When they arrived, they found more than fifty students with Sanders, who was barely clinging to life. A paramedic tried to stop his bleeding, but it was too late. Sanders died

They were first inspired by the Oklahoma City bombing and planned to conduct the shooting on the same day calling it it's anniversary. They later found video footage of Klebold gloating about having the most deaths in the U.S. expecting to kill 600 people. Harris and Klebold took action by placing bombs inside the cafeteria. Shortly, after the bombs went off it was in their mind to gun down all remaining survivors. "Because of their inability to appreciate the feelings of others, some psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," Hare writes (Dave Cullen). For example, the same exciting feeling you get when putting up your Christmas tree around the holiday season these two young men bodies filled with the same joy. They were just killers looking for a way to attack the world today! Thirteen were killed with twenty-three other being injured. Shortly after the schools mass shooting the two Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris then killed themselves.

On April 20, 1999, tragedy struck a Colorado high school. It started out as an ordinary spring day in Jefferson County, but it soon turned horrific. “The tragedy began at approximately 11:10 a.m. on that sunny Tuesday,” (Gimpel 27), right around lunchtime. No one could have anticipated the events that would soon follow, devastating the otherwise average suburban town. The lives of the students of Columbine High School and their families would never be the same after that catastrophic day.

I believe the reason readers were left in the dark about this at first was to make sure we were not biased about the police immediately and to let us explore every possibility. Among the heroes of Columbine, Dave Sanders rose above all. From the moment he was informed of the armed men in the building, he ran to help students and continuously herd them either into classrooms or outside school doors, being shot in the process. In spite of medical aid from a trained Red Cross student, the medics failed to arrive soon enough to save Sanders after holding on to his life for 3 hours. Medics and police quickly became scapegoats, receiving blame because of their time consuming tactic of securing the perimeter. This resulted in many injured people waiting to be treated and rescued within the school, some battling for their lives. Nonetheless, the parents of Eric and Dylan garnered the most hatred and blame due to their son’s actions. Without them alive anymore, people turned their focus to the next closest things, parents, claiming it was how they raised their children that drove them to this

Recently in America a tragedy occurred in San Bernardino, 14 people were murdered by 2 people that allegedly had ties to ISIS. Although officers responded in a matter of minutes, that speed isn’t always available, especially in rural areas. Is this the beginning of a change in America? I believe this is so and I also believe mass shootings should be addressed more specifically school shootings because the means of protection aren’t there. “Since 2013, there have been at least 161 school shootings in America- an average of nearly one a week.” (161 School Shootings in America Since 2013. everytownresearch.org.) That statistic includes 3 Indiana schools St. Mary’s Catholic School in Griffith, Indiana on 4/21/14, Purdue University on 1/21/14 and Indiana State on 9/29/14, also a high school in Louisville, Kentucky a day after the Indiana State shooting. These aren’t just happening on the west coast or down in Florida where the news only talks about, the places that seem to never be close, they’re happening close to home

The first school took place on July 26th, 1764. 4 Lenape Native Americans went into a school house and killed the school master and 9 to 10 kids. Now this may not take place is modern times but this is the first instance of one or multiple people to target a school in the United States, as a way of expressing aggression. This coincided with the Pontiac rebellion which was brought on by Native Americans disapproval of British post war policies after the French Indian war. Reports vary on the motive or people involved. This event is exceeding important to new findings and case studies done because it does not fit in to the normal characteristics of a “school shooting.” Though it took place in a school and involved some form of aggression or disgruntlement

Recently there have been many school shootings throughout the United States and the world. Most of these shooting were all connected with the shooter being on anti-depressant medications. In an article called “Medicated to death: by SSRI’s and mass killings” by Lisa Arbercheski, she writes that SSRI’s are linked to the cause of most shootings. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) is one of the most popular medications taken for depression in many countries. Some are known by their popular names like Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Paxil. These medications have many tests done and none of them prove that they cure depression or mood swings. Could these medications be connected to some of the most recent shootings like the one in Newton, Connecticut? The case is that these medications are causing adolescents to go on suicidal rampage shootings and the United States is trying to play it off like the medications have no connection.

At 11:24 am, the school resource officer, Deputy Sheriff Neil Gardner, returned from lunch and exchanged fire in a long-distance gun battle with Harris and Klebold before they entered the building. Deputy Gardner did not enter the building to pursue the killers, nor did any of the other Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies, who arrived within minutes. A SWAT team quickly assembled outside the school, but the team did not enter the building until approximately 12:06 P.M. ("Columbine High School Tragedy" p.) The first SWAT personnel entered the east side of the school (far from where the killers were known to be) at 12:06 p.m. For the next several hours the police continued to “contain the perimeter”—searching and securing one room at a time, starting with the rooms farthest from where the killers had last been spotted. In the meantime, Klebold and Harris were shooting people inside the school.

School shootings are becoming more common in the United States. People may say that these shootings are making our gun control more strict. From my point of view there will be stricter gun control. If we are going to have stricter gun control, then there needs to be background checks for people that are going to buy guns or ammunition. There have been shootings all over the U.S, including Sandy Hook Elementary, Columbine High School, Umpqua Community College in Oregon, and Virginia Tech College.

The research articles selected discuss a dark day that occurred at 0800 on 23 January 2018 in Benton, Kentucky one day after a school shooting that had occurred in Texas 22 January 2018. A 15-year-old boy walked into the school and went to the common area of Marshal County High School; pulled out a handgun and opened fired on fellow students. The 15-year-old boy was arrested with no motive discovered. The end result was two students’ lives being taken at an early age of 15-years-old and 18 other students being wound with varying ages. The shooters identity has not been given to the community but one of the local reports who rushed to the scene was quickly relieved due to it was her son that is the suspect for the shooting. The shooter was quickly subdued once police arrived on scene. The district attorney is looking to charge the 15-year-old as an adult with no motive yet on why.

The article, “No there has not been 18 school shootings in 2018. That number is flat wrong” by John Woodrow Cox and Steven Rich, made me realize even more the dangers and how common school shootings are getting. This is very sad, and frightening, to see happen for kids of all ages.

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.