School Violence : Causes Of School Shootings

We never thought that a day would come where parents would be weeping over their child’s death, and such little hands could hold such a weapon that determines if a person lives or not. School shootings are on the rise more than ever in today’s society. We imagine school to be a place where we make new friends, learn about our society and gain an education. We all picture a safe place where our future all begins. Lately we often ask ourselves why do high school shootings occur and what goes on behind the minds of these individuals. As an average American we often overlook things and say “that could never happen at my school, school shootings rarely happen”. Communities all over the county live in fear of school shootings. Instead, we should feel secure in sending our children to school and not be afraid of what happens at school five days a week, seven hours each day. American schools have now become a dangerous place and high school shootings have been occurring all over the county leading to more and more deaths each year. Due to the number of school shootings each year we often have to ask ourselves who are these shooters and why do these events occur?

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

In 1999, two considered outcasts, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, walked into Columbine High School in Colorado, opened fire and murdered twelve students, one teacher, while injuring twenty-four additional students before turning the gun on themselves. In 2007, Seung-Hui Choo, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed thirty-two people and injured seventeen others, before turning the gun on himself. It was the deadliest mass shooting at a school in United States history. In 2012, Adam Lanza, shot and killed his mother then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut, before opening fire and killing twenty children and six adult staff members before turning the gun on himself. This was the second deadliest mass shooting in United States history. These three separate shootings, all took place in what is suppose to be a safe learning environment, but all ended with many casualties. It has heightened our concern and raises the question on the measures that can be taken to safely protect our students and staff in our school systems: Should our teachers and administrators be armed? Arming teachers and administrators in public and private schools does not send the appropriate message towards students and parents and could offer more risk than reward to teachers. In addition, teachers and administrators are taught to provide the students with educational purpose while maintaining order and discipline in a comfortable, safe and friendly learning atmosphere. Therefore,

The documentary, “Pathway to Violence”, delves into the topic of mass murders, especially school shootings. Citing crimes such as those that took place at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech, viewers are shown the inside view of the perpetrators. It is shown that offenders often display warning signs, which are commonly missed. The documentary offers not only a look at the perpetrators themselves, but also at the reformations that are necessary to potentially prevent these tragedies before they happen.

School shootings strike into the heart of every American. From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook, the thought of innocent young students being mercilessly mowed down wrenches one’s heart. Yet these events continue to happen, and in ever increasing numbers. What could possibly drive a person to commit such a horrifying act?

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.

There have been 294 case of mass shootings out of 360 days recorded in 2015 (Ingraham). This proves how serious violence on campus has become in the United States, not just about guns violence but also acts of harassment, stalking, interpersonal violence, physical and sexual assaults. Schools and college campuses is a place where children and young adults has been assumed to be a safe places to spend their time learning. Yet, they still experience and have witnesses many acts of violence in their school which affect their emotional security and learning experience. There are several reasons that could encourage violence such as the norms within a cultural or social group, as well as video games. Mental health is also linked to these violent issues as students do not get enough treatment or does not seeks enough help for their problems. While stopping violence on campus is an intricate issue; however, it can be prevented as we delve into this paper.

School is supposed to be a safe environment that parents can count on to send their children to learn, socialize with peers, build a good academic foundation for their future, but the epidemic of school shootings in the United States is preventing this from happening. The gruesome truth is that teenagers and young children are being murdered by fellow students on a regular basis. The media portrays a stereotype that all school shooters have a form of mental illness, frequently labelling them as psychotic and psychopathic. Adolescent school shooters are not necessarily psychotic or psychopathic. Often, they have been negatively affected by societal expectations, influence of media, masculine ideologies, bullying and their broken families.

It is a somber event for those who read the newspaper when they see the risks that the children in this continent are subject to. Mothers and fathers become worried when they send their offspring to school, not certain when or if they will return. Lives are ended early and without reason, when these helpless infants are helplessly caught in a horrific situation.

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.

Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, there have been roughly 208 school shootings on school grounds. This series of shootings, especially after the attack in Parkland Florida, has created an outcry for stricter gun laws, higher purchasing ages and more background checks to try and make schools safer. One of the ideas on the table to reach this is to arm teachers and staff with firearms to ‘stop the threat before it happens’. But, this has received nothing but opposition from a majority of Americans, since the cost or properly arming a school is too great, arming teachers is an open invitation to unwarranted gun violence against minority students and teachers due to racial biases. The outcry of students, teachers and families is

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.

High school shootings have been occurring all over the country. All incidents leading to one or more deaths: Jonesboro, Fayetteville, Edinboro, Pearl, Moses Lake, Grayson, Olivehurst, Bethel, West Paducah, and many more. It will never happen to me, you could say, well, it could.y Behind school shootings students spend one hundred and eighty days per year at school, they spend so much time getting an education, but is the environment they’re in actually safe? There are many causes of school shootings and so they are effects.