Paige Collins Mrs.Rogers English 12 Per.03 February 27, 2017 Senior Research Paper School shootings have become most common in the United States with having over 70 shootings since the Columbine Massacre on April 20, 1999. America is the only country that has a lead in the shooting epidemic, and many have questions such as, ‘what are the warning signs of a school shooter or mass murderer?’ As well as wondering if the person could get mental health early in life to prevent anything in the future. Another thing people wonder especially with Dylan Klebold 's mother who wrote the book ‘ A Mother’s Reckoning:Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy’ In the book Sue Klebold talks about how many asked her how she could not know. She then later …show more content…
The public school system in the United States is very careless of the students because most of the time there are over 2000 kids enrolled in a single public high school. Teachers and school officials don’t look for signs in every individual student because there are usually too many students and a lot of them get forgotten if they don’t make themselves public by being active on school sports teams, getting involved in school activities, or being on the honor roll and prepared to go to a university after high school. A man by the name of Peter Langman; a psychologist who has been studying the behavior of school shooters for years now has collected many journals, suicide and homicide notes written by school shooters in the past on his website “School Shooters. Info”. A lot of the writings have things in common. Some talk about being bullied or picked on at school and how their lives at home are. Others plan out their attacks then later discuss how their attack went in letters to publishers. Almost all of them have a plan for how they are going to attack and who they plan to murder. Others just write out their feelings or how their life is going. Reading through some of the journals it is obvious that these kids are mentally disturbed. The journals themselves are warning signs of a murderer and should have been addressed by the parents. “Our mental health system has broken down and become a
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
So how could someone commit a mass shooting? Many psychologists have given their own thoughts as to why someone would fulfil such a deadly personal mission. For the most part, it would appear that many school shooters do what they do for their moment in the spotlight. In this day and age of modern technology, there's no doubt the killer's face will soon be on everybody's social media feeds and on the front of newspapers all over the globe. Others, however, may commit a mass shooting to make themselves seem powerful. This is common when the shooter has been a victim of bullying or abuse, as being the one with control over everybody else gives them a certain rush of adrenaline and feeling of dominance they may have never had had before.
When thinking about school shootings names like Columbine and Sandy Hook pop up. Those are the most tragic by far, however everyone always ask why such a horrible crime happens, but no one has never stopped and researched why such hate crimes like those happen. Instead people resort to Channel 2 or Fox 5 for answers, not realizing that their story isn’t the full truth. I am truly against school shootings; looking for answers myself. If there’s one thing I’ve picked up from the media is how they portray school shootings with mental illness, but according to Alfred.edu/teen violence says, “They want to get back at those who hurt them or revenge.” Many adults always struggled to realize why things as vigorous as shootings happens; also fail to realize they are the start of something so tragic. There are several reasons that lead to a school shooting but only five are common.
Mass murders have become somewhat of an epidemic in the U.S. There are many notable shootings within our recent history; so many that they’ve become somewhat normalized in today’s society. The Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in 2012 is one of the well-known shootings that has occurred in the past five years. I remember when I first heard of the tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. Even though it occurred far away, it hit close to home, and I broke down after hearing that twenty young lives had been taken. The shooter, Adam Lanza, had been diagnosed with mental health disorders and reportedly had an obsession with mass shootings. In the article, “Adam Lanza’s Mental Problems ‘Completely Untreated’ Before Newtown Shootings, Report
There are many factors that come into play as far as the shooter goes. For example, their self esteem, depression, or suicidal thoughts may have a negative impact on their mental health. However, there is no set expectations of how a shooter should act. This is what makes it difficult to spot a potential shooter. While this is true, there is a correlation between social media and school shooters. Children who said they were going to shoot people online where often prepared to follow through. For the children that said it in person, it was often an impulsive threat. The article suggests that claiming "mental illness" is a distraction to the public. It says that the best way for schools to stay safe is to keep close communication. The article says that if anyone suspects a potential school shooter, they should report them to the National Alliance for Mental Illness immediately. Overall, this article will help with our research by providing data of how communication is an important factor in detecting a school
Since mass and school shootings are on the rise it is crucial to find a way to categorize these school shooters in an effort to minimize the amount of people who actually carry out the horrific act and to help pinpoint the most effective treatment intervention. Some of the factors that the media coverage focuses on are social factors such as peer harassment and the influence of media violence (Langman, 2009). In order to categorize Christopher Harper-Mercer, the examples provided in Peter Langman’s article on Rampage School Shooters: A Typology will be compared and assessed. Through this article Langman assesses the acts and history of 10 school shooters and separates the shooters into three distinct categories: Traumatized, psychotic, and
After seventeen school shootings already this year, Americans seem to know the routine. They see the news of another shooting , wonder what the world has come to, tweet out their thoughts and prayers, and move on with their lives as though nothing happened. Some politicians will propose reforms, but opposers will shoot them down by claiming that we must wait until long after the tragedy to talk about politics. With an average of 1.4 shootings per week this year, when will it not seem too soon (Ahmed). In his book Columbine, author Dave Cullen takes a look at one of America’s most infamous tragedies, the Columbine High School Massacre. In the April of 1999, two boys entered Columbine High with deadly weapons and proceeded to kill fourteen of their peers, as well as injure others. As the first publicized school
What characteristics, if any, do school shooters have in common? Can they all be lumped into one group of empathy-lacking, sadistic, depressed individuals, or do they each act due to their own separate reasons? Although the media makes it seem as if school campus massacres are becoming an increasingly common threat, the reality is that an event of that caliber is exceptionally rare. While it is true that no two perpetrators are alike, it is important to recognize that the overwhelming majority of school shooters follow a basic equation of personality traits, behavioral patterns, and other characteristics.
The perpetrators who gave insight to many psychological fields and named as inspiration for unfortunately similar occasions, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris’s legacy will forever remain as homegrown terrorists. On April 20, 1999, Klebold and Harris opened fire at Columbine High School, consequently ending the lives of fifteen—including themselves—and injuring numerous others. In the nearly two decades following the Columbine High School massacre, the United States has seen an uptick in school shootings and an increased awareness of mental health; too often an individual’s “brain health” status goes unnoticed until they put themselves or others in immediate danger—such was the case of Klebold and Harris.
School shootings have been happening all over the country for the past four decades, but it wasn’t until the 1990’s what the impact from experiencing a trauma of this magnitude can do both psychological and psychically started coming to light as well as creating more national attention for the arising problem in our nation. In 1998 in small town in Oregon, Kip Kinkel walked into Thurston High School killing four and wounded twenty-three students and in 1999 in Colorado at Columbine High School Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into school killing fifteen and wounded twenty-one, making it the worst school shooting of the decade. Fast forward to 2007 and we’re in Virginia at the small college campus of Virginia Tech, were Seung-Hui Cho opened fire killing thirty two and wounding many more while then in 2008 at Northern Illinois University Steven Kazmierczak walked into Cole Hall killing five and injuring twenty one.
Horror filled events capture the eyes of television viewers across America each day. Many of these tragic incidents broadcasted involve the use of guns. Something seen on the news instantly after occurring are the massacres of students and faculty in school shootings. A student walked on to the campus of Virginia Tech where he created the worst shooting done by a single gun-man. In California, a student entered Santana High school where he continued his day by shooting multiple people.The infamous Columbine High School shooting exemplifies the terror that can erupt when students get their hands on a gun. The easy availability of guns in the United States cause these malicious people to be able to accomplish their sickest fantasies. Mental illness
During the past decade, America has witnessed a rise in mass murders carried out by youth leaving parents, teachers and school officials scrambling to figure out the motive behind such attacks. The 1999 massacre at Columbine High School was a watershed moment in American history that offered, besides grief and sorrow for lost loved ones, clues as to how to prevent copycat massacres at school campuses in the future. Theories abound in the hopes of explaining why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 and injured 21 others, yet very few hold true as time progresses and other massacres unfold. Modern-day schools have atmospheres that foster bullying and a divided social class system. The attacks perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
Professor Amy Johnson was in a meeting of Clergywomen when she received an alert from her daughter's school is in locked down, due to a gun violence threat. Since the early 1970s school shootings at elementary, secondary and higher education institutions have been a traumatic reality for American society. Everyday threat sends some school into lockdown because of which students get scared even those turn out to be false alarms. Because of this, All schools are conducting drills in which students hide under their seats or other safe areas from the imaginary shooter. In less than four months into 2018, there have been 16 shootings in America. At least 130 students, staff and family members buried. The school shooting is now the global issue. More than 187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at a school since Columbine. Developed countries like America, Pakistan, Finland, and Canada are also under the influence of this matter. The causes behind this massacre are multiple like the mental illness of a child, parenting issue, financial crisis, revenge, intolerance, anger, frustration or maybe more. School shootings are not solely a problem for the United States, both comparative and international approaches have been used to understand this global problem.
On April 20th, 1999, two shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, entered Columbine High School and murdered thirteen people and wounded more than twenty others. In doing so the two teenagers not only hurt many families and left a community scarred forever, but they also changed the landscape of American politics, national attitudes towards gun control, and began a violent phenomenon, now known as school shootings, that would haunt America for years to come. Since that fateful day in 1999, school shootings have become common place in America. From 2013 to January of 2018, it is estimated that around “300 school shootings” have taken place in the United States (Scott par.1). This data does not include the shooting at Parkland High School, which took place on February 24th, 2018, or the shooting at Santa Fe High
When you hear about a school shooter, you might think “Oh, there parents are awful, they just let their child do that,” Well you would be wrong. Most of the time we can`t comprehend if a child will be a potential school shooter, also them owning a gun does not make them a suspect for a potential school shooter.. The real issue here is the lack of communication between the victim or potential school shooter and the school. In “Here’s How to Prevent the Next School Shooting, Experts Say” by Anya Kamenetz, she states “It means the quality of relationships among the students and the adults in a school. It's affected by the school's approach to discipline and behavior, the availability of professionals like counselors and social workers, as well as any social-emotional curriculum taught in the classroom.” Also “School climate, in turn, affects students' mental and emotional health and