The Lives Of Lee Boyd Malvo And John Allen Muhammad

Living in a world full of crime and violence, people begin to wonder what the cause of the violence is and how it can then be prevented. Unfortunately, there is not a single root cause that can be found when people attempt to decipher why children are deciding to bring guns to school and murder their peers. Some may believe that it was influenced by being exposed to a hostile family, violent films, or gory video games. Although sometimes this might be the case, a lot of the time it is not as black and white, making this topic very difficult to analyze and understand. Both Jonathan L. Freedman in “Villain or Scapegoat? Media Violence and Aggression” and L Rowell Huesmann and Laramie D. Taylor in “The Role of Media Violence in Violent

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor once said “Everything can change in an instant. Everything. And then there is only before and after.” On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold marched into Columbine High School on with one intention: to kill as many students and faculty as possible, a plan that was estimated to be five months in the making was finally carried out. Loaded with a variety of guns, pipe bombs, and knives, the two who were dubbed the “trenchcoat mafia” successfully murdered 12 kids, one teacher and injured two dozen more before finally taking their lives. But where does such rage, such hatred, stem from? Some would say they were bullied into their actions, thus, finally snapping and taking revenge; others would say they were psychotic. The bottom line is thirteen lives were viciously taken and many more were permanently shattered. The crimes committed by Harris and Klebold were “replicated” by people who were mislead to thinking that shooting people was the best way out of their miserable lives. Society viewed the acts committed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999 with sheer fear and horror, some were even scared to go back to school; this tragic event was a vast wake up call that relayed to many people they were not safe even where they felt the safest. These are some of the reasons why the Columbine Massacre was the “Greatest Injustice of all time.”

“Murders of children by other children have tripled in three years, as more of the nation's youth get drawn into a deadly world of guns and knives” (Wynne-Jones and Leapman, 2008).

It’s Student parent orientation night at Miami Senior High school, and parents are starring at the projector on the wall that reads “Welcome To Miami High!” Students await eagerly nearby and wonder about their decision on what to do for the next four years; when all of a sudden the front doors blast open, as bullets fly through the air. Two teenage boys have shot up a school once again, Four dead and nine injured. People think about what can cause a person to think, and act, this way. Some state that a small portion of people are just born this way, to cause harm. They will soon learn otherwise.

Today, the media has brought the whole world closer together, and with it fear. The mass amount of news stories of public shootings and kidnappings created a protective and proactive style of parenting. Each kid could have the mindset and the ability to live the same as me and my friends, but the style of parenting is different from when I grew up in. The heightened awareness of these sickening, cowardly, and villainous acts have made everyone fearful to live. Rules and precautions have hindered children from exploring for their own

In these large cities children begin with petty crimes and then turn out notorious criminals at young age. Murders, gang members, and certain organizations in films have shaped children’s minds at a young age and lack of a household parent can have a child at a young age looking up to these type of figures. They can begin to imitate what they see and do in these movies and on TV.

In the U.S. there are more school shootings than anywhere else in the world. It is not completely the minor’s fault when they commit a violent act. Many factors contribute to when minors make decisions but there are a few that stand out. When a minor commits a violent act parents, peers, and the media are to blame.

On April 20, 1999 a massacre happened at Columbine High school. This is a day that Cassie Bernall died. Two boys one day decided to show up to the school with guns. Many people have two of the wrong conclusion as to what happened that day. The first one is the two boys wanted to get revenge on the bullies that made them miserable at Columbine. They were known as the “Trench Coat Mafia outcasts” The second conclusion is the unexplainable: We can never understand what drove them to madness that day. But the correct conclusion to this situation was they wanted to kill people at the school. They planned the shooting a year and advanced. These two boys killed 13 kids and wounded 23 before they ended their own lives. One of the students that died

Murder is a disturbing crime that shocks people when it occurs, however it’s more disturbing to think that a child is capable of such a violent and atrocious act. It is often very hard to imagine that a young child can be the source of such extreme violence and act in such an extreme manner. We as adults may not always be able to understand why they commit delinquent acts, or exhibit extremely violent and even commit a heinous crime such as murder. Psychological theories are able to give us some understanding of why these things happen and understanding what drives a juvenile to engage in criminal behavior may be able to ultimately help prevent further delinquency or delinquent behavior taken into account the various factors that are involved.

On February 29, 2000, six year old first grader Dedrick Owens reportedly fired a .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun into a group of students at Buell Elementary School, near Flint, Michigan, killing classmate Kayla Renee Rolland, also six. The youngest known school shooter in history, Owens was not charged for the killing, due to an 1893 U.S. Supreme Court Ruling which states that children under seven cannot be found guilty of felony. Jamelle James, a nineteen year old man who was living in the same house as Owens, was charged and pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter, for leaving the gun within the boy's reach. James spent two and a half years in prison. In this case, it was less a murder and more of a curiosity gone wrong. If you leave a gun in front of a six year old, they are going to take it and tragically in this case he also used it. (Duke, 2004)

Even though school and communities share in the responsibility for educating and development children, families have traditionally had the greatest impact on childhood development families also have a major role in the propensity of children and adolescent to obligate violent acts (Chandra’s, 1999). The FBI’s typical evaluated the likelihood that a student will carry

It seems that violent video games can not only turn an at-risk child up to a dial on their behaviors but also low-risk children into a school shooter (Mozes 5). Video games have also been put on the radar as to one of the root problems of minors committing violent acts. “If a child began playing violent video games at a young age, then he might think that violence in real life is the same as the game violence and that it doesn’t have a real impact on others” (Gilad 29). While kids play violent video games, they’re not only playing for fun. They are analyzing the which changes their behavior and actions due to thought process for example, “They start to expect people to behave more aggressively toward them, and they tend to see aggressive solutions as being more appropriate for solving problems”(Mozes 5).

Most children do not have the ability to think rationally about their decisions. In 2013, a 2- year old in Kentucky was shot and killed by her 5-year old brother. Although there was no guardian supervision when the homicide happened, the child did not have the capability to understand how dangerous a gun can become. There have been hundreds of cases like the one mentioned previously happening throughout the United States. Studies have shown that children are less able than adults to make risky choices and comprehend the disadvantages and advantages of their choices. These studies support the basic belief that

Crimes are linked to guns and the violence they bring in many ways. They can corrupt adults and even their kids. As a child everything seems different, and the violence they see on TV, video games, music, or any other media including their parents themselves could have drastic measures on how they act. As some kids have done things wrong only by mistake and some have done them knowing what they were doing. One boy killed his teacher on the last day of school, and he was sentenced

Our textbook side notes about the teen boy “Malvo who was 17 years of age, when he went on a sniper spree in 2002 with another man named John Muhammad.” (Santrock 2013) Unfortunately, stories like theses are captured in national headlines all too often. As I