Cause Of School Shootings Essay

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.

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.

There has been an average of one school shooting every week in America since the Sandy Hook shooting. On the fourteenth of December, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20-year-old Adam Lanza not only killed his mother in her home, but also twenty children and six members of staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This was to be the third deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The Huffington Post reports that as of 2014, there have been over 200 school shootings. These have resulted in at least 94 deaths and over 156 serious and minor injuries. And, with an issue as emotive and contentious as the murder of school children, the question has been frequently asked: why do school shootings happen?

A method of preventing school shootings would be to acknowledge risk factors that the student is facing. For example, bullying is a risk factor for school shootings. In a research study done in 2001 of 37 school shootings, it was reported that 75% of the school shooters felt bullied, threatened, or injured by others in which most of the shooters in the report had experienced long-term bullying and harassment from their peers (Duplechain & Morris, 2014). In addition, the authors do state: “School personnel too often accept that children get teased and bullied every day, because teachers, parents, students, and other adults have grown up thinking that bullying is a normal part of school life. It has easily become an accepted part of today’s school culture” (Ibid, 2014). The authors believe that schools view bullying as something that students should get used to. This does show how bullying is an issue in schools. It is not solely to blame in regards to school shootings, but is a risk factor for them.

Society plays a big role in the development of a school shooter. When an individual feels isolated or excluded from a community and is a target for bullies, it often causes them to take out that repressed anger and lash out in heinous ways. Nowadays, students are typically at school five days a week for six to seven hours a day. That is a lot of time spent with classmates, and unfortunately, bullies. Bullying usually involves an imbalance of power, in which the bully hopes to establish a feeling of dominance over their victim. (Bullying, 2017) Being the victim of bullying is certainly an emotionally damaging situation, especially when one feels helpless and alone. Anger or discontent from the victim may develop into something deeper like hatred and the need for revenge, which is the reason why some individuals turn to shooting schools- to finally hurt others instead of being the one getting hurt. One horrifying example of bullying taking

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

This essay will evaluate the article titled “What Can Be Done About School Shootings?: A Review of the Evidence” by looking at its arguments and points in conjunctions with other theories and researches about school shootings. With the question being poised, why has school shootings generated such debates around school safety. As noted in the article and other theories and research the fear generated by school shootings often implies that schools are considerable unsafe but when looking at the occurrence of violence in schools in comparison with other risks it is minimal. Nevertheless, what essentially can be drawn from such debates is the increasingly interest in school safety has in a sense pointed at a greater need to do something about

“There have been 220 shootings on school campuses in the U.S. since 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, according to Everytown For Gun Safety, an advocacy group.” (Krishnakumar, Priya , and Len Degroot) Many people do not feel safe attending or sending their child to a public school where they are possibly subject to a shooting. School shootings were first initially brought to the attention of the public in 1999, Columbine was one of the first school massacres that was recognized nationwide. Because of the magnitude of the shooting there is an abundance of information online bearing information of the event. First off, the shooters had identified specific targets, athletes, minorities and Christians. The two shooters had planned the firing for over a year and thought out their whole strategy. (“Columbine High School shootings.”) There was no plan in place to react to this shooting, because nothing like it had ever happened before. Although if there was, we may not hear about Columbine to the degree we do today. Columbine still is the most well known shooting and the horrific impact is still notable today across the United States. In the eighteen years since Columbine in 1999 there have been hundreds of school shootings, ranging from grade schools to college universities. Obviously, school shootings are a big problem in the United States and hopefully in time with the proper precautions taken they will eventually be eliminated forever.

Some of the most infamous acts of terror on American soil took place on numerous campuses across the nation. School shootings, like Sandy Hook and Columbine, have started to become an ordinary event seen on the news, which causes a numb reaction in the hearts of countless Americans. According to an article written by AJ Willingham and Saeed Ahmed, from CNN, “...30 deadliest shootings in the United States dating back to 1949, 18 have occurred in the last 10 years.” In all of these cases, the news will give the attacker the attention they so dearly crave and always giving the same justification “they were mentally ill”. This one phrase reflects on all of those who also are affected by mental illness, does this make them corrupt like these terrorists?

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?

Connecticut, Georgia, Colorado, Virginia, Oregon, Michigan, and Tennessee are the sites in which some of the most viscous school crimes have occurred. In this day and age it seems as if school isn't a safe haven for America's children anymore. School shootings are on the rise more than ever in today's society with kids as young as 9 years old committing these gruesome crimes against their classmates and instructors. To see this type of action among kids is heartbreaking and sad. People wonder what makes a child want to kill another or how did they get their little hands on such a powerful weapon. Most of the young killers today find it very easy to gain access to guns and bomb making material via the Internet. By using the internet

On April 20, 1999, two young students of Columbine High School, opened fire in their school killing twelve students and injuring more than twenty other students. March 21, 2005, a sixteen-year-old boy killed his grandfather and his companion before going to Red Lake Senior High School and killed five students and a security guard. April 16, 2007, a gunman kills two people in his dorm before going to a academic building at Virginia Tech and killing thirty students. December 14, 2012, a twenty-year-old man kills his mother before going Sandy Hook Elementary School and killing twenty-six people, twenty whom were first graders. December 13, 2013, an eighteen-year-old man killed one student at Arapahoe High School in Colorado. October 24, 2014, a fifteen-year-old gunman killed five students and injured one student at Marysville Pilchuck High School. October 1, 2015, a twenty-six-year-old man fired in a hall at Umpqua Community College killing ten people and injuring nine. Now I could go on and on with how many school shootings the United

     “That could never happen in my school.” This is one of the first thoughts that goes through a students mind when they hear about a school shooting. The fact is though, it can. School shootings can happen at any school at any time. Lack of security is only a small part of the problem. The major issue lies in the low morality of students and warning signs overlooked by administration.

Unfortunately, school shootings and threats have become more common throughout the past 18 years. One of the first major school shootings that brought attention to gun violence in America was the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. According to the U.S. History website state that two teens, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, went on a shooting spree throughout the school. After killing 12 students and one teacher, the boys then killed themselves. During the investigation on the boys motives, investigators came to the conclusion that most likely the shooting was connected to bullying because the boys were members of social outcast groups, and violence in video games. It is unfortunate that bullying may have been the cause of this awful event in history, but it is even more upsetting that school shootings like these, have happened again at an even worse

The school shootings at Westside Middle School were orchestrated by two juveniles. On Monday, March 30, 1998 two boys ambushed students and teachers outside Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Andrew Golden a youth of 11 years and Mitchell Johnson who was 13 years old were responsible for this hideous tragedy. Apparently, Mitchell Johnson hid in the woods while Andrew set off the fire alarm causing the students and teachers to run out of the building. Armed with three stolen rifles and four handguns, the documentary explained that the two youth flushed kids and teachers out of the school by means of a false fire alarm then opened up on them. When they stopped shooting, four students and a teacher lay dead and 10 students were