As the world recovers from recent school shootings, people wondered why these events have occurred. They are focused on drug use, violent society, video games, bullying, and mental issues to try and explain an unexplainable event. The idea that a person would shoot others for little or no reason gave little relief to the survivors. History of School Shootings School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. Since 1764, the number of school shootings rose exponentially. In the 1990’s, eighty-six school shootings occurred and between 2000 and 2014, 110 shootings transpired since 2000 (Killam,2008). The development of semiautomatic weapons lead to an increase in deaths. A study conducted in 1990 found through the years of 1986 to 1990; 71 people died, 201 wounded, and 242 people held hostage by school shooters(Galvin). While the area a school serves as one factor in the number of violent acts committed per year, school shootings have not been connected to this. The schools in Chicago dealt with more violent acts, but Sandy Hook Elementary, a small city school had relatively few violent acts committed by students. Society of Violence Today’s society thrives on violence. Young children made pretend guns and shot at siblings, teenagers enjoyed video games which praised the player for kills, and adults flocked to see the latest horror movie, few people asked what effect this has on people and society. Some psychologists have started researching this effect. A study by Dr. Ferguson;... ... middle of paper ... ...content/uploads/2010/09/Leary-et- al.-2003.pdf Lessons Learned Blog. (2013, November 15). Lessons Learned Blog. Retrieved February 26, 2014, from http://blog.awareity.com/ Mongan, P. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics/publications/ social_work_journal/issue14/articles/mongan.htm O'Toole, M. E. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/school- shooter Poland, S. (2012, July). What we know about school shooters. D.A. District Administation. Retrieved from http://www.districtadministration.com/article/what-we-know-about- school-shooters Poutvaara, Panu, and Olli Ropponen. "School Shootings and Student Performance." . IZA, n.d. Web. 18 Feb 2014. . Steinberg, M., Allensworth, E., & Johnson, D. (2011). Retrieved from http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/ downloads/8499safety_in_cps.pdf
April 20th, 1999, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, experienced a mass shooting. Thirteen people were injured and more than twenty were injured. Twelve were students and one was a teacher. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their high school for forty one minutes before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. School shootings are notorious for making headline news but in 1999, school shooting were not as prevalent as they are in the present day. The media blew up on the catastrophe that was Columbine and many questions were raised, who were these kids and why did they do this? Speculation arose about why they did it. Maybe they were bullied for being goth and social outcasts or maybe they
School shootings alarm everybody, even those who are not immediately affected. They spark national and global news as well as debate. They make parents reluctant to send their kids off to class. In any case, they additionally prompt speculations about the individuals who perpetrate these horrendous and saddening crimes. Causing generalizations and myths about the causes for such terrible acts. Most suppositions about the culprits aren't correct and a number of the warning signs go unnoticed.
School shootings have gone up in tremendous numbers since the Columbine mass shooting in 1999. This unfortunately opened a door to cause malicious copycats to react such crimes that still happen to this year. There have been 200 shootings at school in the last past decade. School shootings have an impact on how we go to school everyday without knowing there is a possibility of being attacked because of a heinous crime. One of America’s most deadly social problem is school shootings because it can create mental problems for students, they occur because of bullying, and can lead to unemployment.
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. However, on a college campus, the pupils attending are not children anymore; the age range is from 17 to mid 20’s. Therefore they understand the consequences associated to the use of weapons and have gained more maturity. In April 16th, 2007, at Blacksburg, Virginia, there was a shooting rampage enacted by Sung-Hui Cho (23 years, from Centreville, VA) who fired over 170 rounds, killing 32 victims, before taking his own life at the Virginia Tech campus. Colleges and Universities would be a much safer place, for student and teacher, if guns were permitted on campus for self-defense purposes.
In recent years the school shooting activity shows alarming rates. As reported by Duplechain and Morris (2014), more than 350 documented school shootings happened from 1760 until 2014, from those 190 happened from 1990-2014 alone. The numbers are staggering and even more staggering is to find out some of the details of those shootings. School shootings perpetrated by underage people even a student from the school that completed their killing rampage committing suicide. Although, it might seem that the problem comes from the accessibility to guns people could have, the reality is different. In most cases mental instability can play as a key element, while bullying and media coverage can also act as important factors. This paper will explore some of reasons behind school shooters from the past, and it will demonstrate how accessibility to guns had nothing to do with the outcome of their behavior, by responding to the following questions.
Crime in the 21st century has evolved from what it was in the past. One major crime that has been occurring more and more are public school shootings. A school shooting is an incident in which gun violence occurs at a school. School shootings have occurred since the early 1760’s but lately there have been an abundant amount of them happening. This crime not only puts people’s lives in danger, but it also takes a toll on the people that went through it. There have been more than 40 plus shootings throughout America, which will continue to increase, alone from the time span of 2000 to 2014 (present.) Now schools throughout the country are going over what they are going to do in a crisis situation. Recently there has been many school shootings which have raised awareness. Schools are frequently modifying and improving the things that they do to make things safer. It is a crime that has been take...
“The Columbine shooters played violent video games; that has to be a factor in their decision to brutally murder their classmates!” Society is quick to point fingers and approach unknown situations with a causal mentality that often results in a false accusation of an innocent bystander. With the advent of the video game era, psychologists have debated their effect on the minds of their youthful audience. Throughout the multitude of studies and the perpetual debate, society still lacks an absolute answer. With this knowledge, when it comes to video games and their impact on the minds of children, researchers must consult a wide variety of subjects with an open mind about the potential outcomes. I conducted my research by examining my personal experience, analyzing studies refuting both sides of the argument, trying to view the American fascination with violence through an outside perspective, and reviewing the thought processes that lead the members of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in order to gain a full perspective of the issue. What correlation exists, if any, between violent video games and the violent tendencies that children exhibit after exposure to said media? Throughout my research, I have discovered that a trend does exist, but it manifests after the child has encountered puberty because of the heightened levels of testosterone that accompany this phase of development, and the trend relies heavily on other factors in a violent disposition. The age factor generally fails to exist in the violent tendencies argument; this is intriguing in that the majority of violent videogames are targeted toward an older audience. In order to truly understand the violent tendencies of mankind, we must first analyze these ...
The early 1990s brought with it increases in technology and violent video games emerged with “person-on-person violence” which include games such as two graphic fighting games, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter and a first-person-shooter zombie infestation game called Doom. By this time, youth violence had dramatically increased and peaked to one of the highest levels on record and various groups of school shootings shocked the United States. The more drastic response to this was the belief that video games were training young children to become murderers by simply playing these violent video games (Ferguson). In view of consumers’ violent nature, the vast majority of research concerning video games has focused on “the way game play impacts anti-social behavior” (Tear). The video game industry was aware of this issue and had to improvise quickly on a solution or there would have been a noticeable decrease in sales. Parents were and still are ...
According to the Harvard Politics, there were fifty five school shootings between November 1,991 and July 16, 2013 (Gupta). However, since 2013, there have been 142 school shootings (Mosendz). If the ratio would have stayed the same between 1991to 2013 and 2013 to 2016, eight school shootings would be expected to have taken place during 2013 and 2016, not 142. School shootings are becoming more of a problem throughout the years. More and more innocent students and teachers are dying due to school shootings. This is not fair to those that are being shot, or to the family and friends of the ones being shot. Often, tragic events like this are hard for someone to overcome, therefore leading them to continuously thinking about what happened. I thoroughly
One of the fastest growing sectors in the United States economy, with sales over six billion dollars in 2012 is the video gaming industry ("Games: Improving the Economy’). Technical innovation has given the video industry power to create exciting realistic worlds, turning video games into the vast entertainment business that it is today. Setting sales records, Violent Video Games (VVG) are now a common staple in many households. One of the most argued topics in media studies, investigation on the impact violence has on society from mass media continues to rage on. Parents look to the media for reliable studies to confirm or distinguish the effects VVG has on children. Even more menacing than violence on television or in movie theaters, VVG have created enticing graphic worlds created to slaughter fellow players. Modern video games allow players to take an active role within the game. Enticing players to engage in realistic assault scenes that are meant to be entertaining. Worthy playing is then rewarded with: trophies, bonus points and extra lives.
School shootings have been a crime for quite some time, in the past three years they have unfortunately become a more common issue. On April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, a school shooting occurred (“Columbine”). This shooting was done by two teens who attended Columbine. The teens’ reasoning behind committing such crime is due to the fact that they were bullied by students of Columbine High School. This was a very tragic event for Columbine High School. With 13 people killed and 20 wounded, it left a mark on the community. After the two teens went about this shooting, they committed suicide. School shootings are a very serious matter, and for years following shootings like Columbine, the atmosphere of the school, as well as the community, is damaged. The Columbine High School shooting is labeled the worst shooting in United States History (“Columbine”). Schools never fully mend from tragic events like school shootings; however, there is more prevention that can be done to reduce the chances of school shootings happening.
School violence is constantly changing and increasing every day and with little response to the results we hear in the news reports. I think back as a past student growing up in the twentieth century. I recall hearing about the traumatic shootings and their outcome that followed. Thinking back to December 1, 1997, where a student named Michael Carneal, a freshman in West Paducah, Kentucky opened fire on classmates, killing three and wounding five. Then imagine one year later, March 5, 1998, another student Mitchell Woodward shot and killed five classmates and wounded
According to a list of school shootings on the CNN web-site, there were twenty school shootings that happened in the United States between January 2018 and April 2018. Twenty shootings, which killed and injured many people, on campuses are not a small number. Shockingly, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida killed seventeen innocent people on February 14th, 2018, and it is a serious alert to students’ safety on campus. Many people believe that educators should be armed, so the students would feel safe while being in schools. Some people also urge the American government to enact a law, which allows educators to possess weapons in schools. On the other hand, there have been
Due to the availability of news and media in today’s technologically advanced society, many people are aware of the violent acts that are committed every day all throughout the world. In addition, the technological advances of today’s society have continued to fuel one of the most successful industries of the present day: the video game industry. Many people have been eager to blame the video game industry for the violent acts that are committed throughout the world because the video game industry has continued to target an audience that seemingly craves an increasing amount of violence, and they criticize the video game industry for its complete lack of restrictions on the sale of violent video games to teenagers. However, although some experts believe that playing violent video games may perpetuate a violent disposition in a teenager, it has been demonstrated that
60% of school shootings in the US happen in small towns. Research on earlier shootings showed the attack is on a school because that is the center stage in a small town, where the shooter can affect the entire community. School shootings are far more frequent in America than in other countries. Although school shootings seem to be on the rise, school is still considered one of the safest places. In 2012 out of all youth homicides, less than 2% occur at school, and this percentage has been stable for the past decade. In 2010, there were about 828,000 nonfatal injuries at school among students 12 to 18 years old. Deaths resulting from schoo...