Causation Of School Shooting

It was 11:19 am when the first set of gunshots pierced through the walls of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. In 49 short minutes, two high school seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and 1 teacher, and then killed themselves. Months prior, the pair planned out the attacks in a series of journal entries and video diaries. The attack at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 raised many questions; the biggest one being, why did they do it? While the common media misconception is that the Columbine shooting was a war against jocks and outcasts, the shooting was actually perpetuated by psychopathy and depression in the shooters.

“Looking at mass shooting in America, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stands out in their background and motives. Unlike Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, or James Holmes at a movie theater in Colorado, or Jared Loughner outside an Arizona shopping center, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did not have discernable psychiatric diagnoses” (Sancier,2014).

On April 20, 1999 every American life was changed forever as the news broke of what would come to be known as the Columbine High School Massacre. Immediately reporters and psychologists alike began to ask the question; why? What could cause Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, eighteen and seventeen respectively, to go off the deep end and commit one of the worst mass shootings in history? Both seniors had less than two months left in their high school career, why would they choose to commit this crime instead of graduating, moving on with their lives, and leaving their classmates to do the same? Although there were two clear killers at Columbine what many people don’t know is the theory that Eric Harris was the true mastermind behind the plan. “To understand Columbine, we have to understand Eric Harris, “(Langman, 2009). Many people who knew the boys say that Dylan Klebold was a follower of Eric Harris and that he would have never constructed a plan like this on his own (“Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold The killers of 13 students and a teacher at Columbine High School – Littleton, Colorado”). Regardless of whether Dylan followed Eric or if he had his own reasons for murder, it is clear that Eric was the one with deep rooted psychological issues. However this makes Dylan Klebold harder to understand, was he a follower or just good at hiding his emotional turmoil? Why did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold commit one of the most well-known school shootings and what effect has it had

Initially, for a school shooter to become an enemy to society they have to be raised differently. For example, Adam Lanza, shooter who caused the horrible deaths of children at Sandy Hook elementary, was raised by a mom who lived in a rural area in New Hampshire where hunting and shooting guns was a regular activity there. Adam showed signs of interest to guns at an early age and his mom would buy him guns to start collecting at age 14. At this point in time he was diagnosed mentally ill and he started to be obsessed with violent fantasies. A main reason his mom would buy him guns is so that they can share an interest in something together and bond. So you have to take into consideration that what happens whilst a child is growing up and how they are raised will impact future actions.

Emeka Odukwu Mrs. Patterson Honors English The contributions of Mental health in the Columbine shooting On April 20, 1999, two teenage boys killed twelve students, and one faculty member, and then proceeded to commit suicide at the high school they attended. At the time, this event would be recognized as the largest mass shooting in American History. The media portrayed the perpetrators as horrible, sick people because of their atrocious crime. However, a closer look behind the reasons that drove them to such violence shows that a psychiatrist may have even diagnosed them with an mental illness.

The psychological approach is made up of many theories. The social learning theory, the social control theory, and the social identity theory. They all apply to The Columbine Shooting. According to Ronald L. Akers and Robert L. Burgess’s Social learning theory differential association is learned criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is often learned from interacting with certain social groups in person or via the internet. Criminal behavior is easily learned by individuals being introduced to techniques of committing the crime and specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. According to with today’s technology on the rise school shootings can be understood by societal concern of the increase of violent video games

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.

Most of the recent shootings seem to be contagious as their shooters’ plans and motives are almost all quite alike. These shooters have set a “stereotypical shooter” profile. They are typically male, white, and around the age of 20. Of all the mass shootings, only one was done by a woman (Mass Shootings in the U.S.). They are usually quite smart, part of a middle class family, and are normally quiet, lonely, and introverted. They are almost always socially awkward and have few-no friends. Yet, no one expects them to kill others as they are quiet. These shooters keep everything to themselves which may be one of the reasons why they are full of hatred. Often, they consider suicide, yet they refuse to talk to any sort of counselor. They are almost always constantly on a computer, frequently playing violent video games. Their shooting plan is almost always pre-meditated far in advance. They plan to make their shooting “great” and to ‘gain fame’ for their mass shooting. After the shooting, most commonly, they kill themselves.

One of the deadliest high school shootings took place on April, 20, 1999 in Littleton Colorado. Carried out by two students and wounding more than 30 people. The day began as any other with people living their daily lives, children going to school, and parents going to work. They had planned to blow up the school and murder everyone who was inside. While the actual motives for the attack remain unknown there are several theories surrounding the boys mental health before and during the time of the attack. They were the outsiders the losers the ones who did not fit in per say. The reasoning of mental health, and being a misfit can be related to the sociological theories of containment, and social bonding. The argument of who is to blame for the

Psychopath: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. This defines 20-year-old Adam Lanza who shot his way through the locked front entrance of Sandy Hook Elementary School with a Bushmaster AR-15 on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012 (Los Angeles Times). The results of this horrific massacre took the lives of 20 children and six adult staff members. This shooting changed the way society controls security, mental health and overall personal awareness towards these events.

In order to solve the problem of violence in schools, we must first find out who the problem is. Being that not every teenager is prone to participate in such violent acts as what happened at Columbine, there must be specific environment imposed on a particular biology to turn a teenager into an Eric Harris or a Dylan Klebold. These are not normal, healthy teenagers, and they don’t just become killers overnight. They become killers because they are already deeply disturbed individuals who can be sent over the edge by all sorts of innocuous influences. Violent teens often have specific characteristics that put them at high risk for committing these crimes. These high risked students may display some of the following traits. First,

The earliest known school shooting in the United States took place in 1764 and was known as the Pontiac Rebellion School Massacre; out of 13 children enrolled in the school, only three survived (Dixon, 2005). Since then early 2000’s there has been 186 active shooters nationwide. People are now asking the question what is making these kids become school shooters. The question seems pretty straight forward, but no one knows a straightforward answer. Scientists and mental health professional have found there to be three main afflictions to cause people to become school shooters. The causes are being bullied, side effects of prescribed drugs, and abusive/neglective households.

In today's society it's not drugs and alcohol at school were worried about anymore, It's guns. Gun violence and school shootings have been all over the news in 2018. The question everyone keeps asking themselves, is why? A few things that play a factor in most of these school shootings are the shooters home and school life, their easy access to the weapon, and their overall wellbeing as a whole.

One of the most notable and gruesome high school shootings have been that of the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999 and the Heath High School shooting on December 1, 1997. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed thirteen people at columbine high school and later shot themselves before the SWAT teams were able to reach the school. Prior to the attack, the two teenagers had made home videos apologizing to their parents and stating what they were planning to do. According to them, what drove them to commit this gruesome act was due to being bullied throughout school. These two had also been arrested before for stealing items and had been reported to the sheriff’s office for threatening to kill a fellow student in the past. Michael Carneal, a fourteen year old boy, was responsible for the deaths of three people and several others wounded at Heath High School. After the shooting, Carneal claimed he had been inspired by the movie “Natural Born Killers” and the video game “Doom”. He was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded mentally ill in the courtroom. Despite having different causes, Eric and Dylan lashing out their rage at students who had bullied them and Michael being heavily influenced by violent media, the effect was the same in both cases where many innocent people lost their lives. Their parents also played a huge role as there was no noticeable effort made by them to seek out help for the two teenagers despite having a troubled past before or for Michael who had been displaying signs of mental illness prior to the shootings. School shootings are mostly carried out by children with violent pasts or abuse, but children who may not act on their rage at an early age may still be subject to later on lash out during adulthood, which introduces several other threats towards the people around

In Psychology, there are perspectives and approaches that are looked into when trying to understand how the intricate human mind works. These perspectives are respectfully derived from different ideas and time periods, exemplifying different ways of thinking. These perspectives include: sociocultural, biopsychological, psychodynamic, behaviorism, cognitive, and humanism. These approaches are critically essential in solving something as serious as murder, or simply even why someone acts the way they do. There are many instances where there will be shocking news stories about people committing murders—people that are so unexpected to do such harm. However, when the six