The Parents' Role in School Shootings Essay

Copyrighted in 2009, ten years after the horrific massacre at Columbine High School, Columbine by Dave Cullen strives to delve deeper into the mystery of that April shooting. Cullen was introduced to Columbine when he entered the scene as a journalist, but didn’t finish his research until nearly nine years later with the publishing of his book (Cullen xiv). However, Columbine was well worth the wait, landing him an Edgar Award, Goodreads Choice Award, Barnes and Noble Discover Awards, and the Top Education Book of 2009 by the American School Board Journal (Cullen 1). Calling the coverage of Columbine a “great media blunder,” Cullen recognizes his role in among the “guilty parties” of the press (Columbine xiv). This lead to a wealth of myths

On April 20, 1999, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who attended Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado went on a shooting spree, leaving thirteen dead and twenty wounded before turning the guns on themselves and committing suicide. This attack would go down as the single worst school shooting in United States history and the shooting spread fear in people across the nation and caused a rise in security. Schools across America introduced new security measures such as metal detectors, dress codes and I.D. badges. Despite the fear left in many people they were still asking several questions: How could two kids do such a horrific act? Was bullying to blame for this attack? Could attacks like these be prevented?

This nationwide panic of school shootings and juveniles synonymous with “folk devils” can be shown using the five features presented by Goode and Ben-Yehuda (Steeves and Milford, 2015). There was initial concern, as several high profile incidents occurred within a period from late 1997 until the Columbine shootings on April 20, 1999 (Burns and Crawford, 1999). The media played a key role by describing the horrifying accounts after each shooting to the public, while they also advertised the funerals of victims throughout social media, radios, and televisions (Burns and Crawford, 1999). Much of the concern is depicted through the actions taken, by “hiring additional security guards”, “installing metal detectors in schools”, and creating “school lockdown procedures” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 152) to name a few. Next was hostility, shown through the “punitive and restrictive responses”, implemented and directed towards “juvenile delinquents” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 153). It became a felony to “expose children to books, movies, and video games that contain explicit sex or violence” (Burns and Crawford, 1999, p. 152). Fueled by the words of Juvenile Magistrate Deborah Robertson, Reverend Mark Clark, and

Sometime back in 2012, there was a reported tragedy that struck the elementary school at sandy hook, Connecticut. It is alleged that a man dressed in black walked into the school compound and opened fire disrupting the serene environment of the school. In the incident, after a few minutes, 26 people lay dead, 20 of them being young children aged between 6 to7 years. Among the grownups that perished were the school principal Dawn Hoch Sprung, and the school’s psychologist Mary Sherlock (Parmet, 2013). The killer identified as Adam Lanza a 20-year-old man also died. Found separately was his mother’s body, at a residence in town. It was compared to another incidence that had occurred in 2007, a similar event of shooting at Virginia where 32 people perished. The young were said to have been directed by their teachers into bathrooms and closets at the onset of the shooting. The incident occurred in

Seventy-two analogous cases. 89 killed. 126 injured. Every single shot fired was an indirect result of the Columbine shooting (“The Columbine effect,” 2015). On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado with semiautomatic weapons and homemade bombs.

Tuesday April 20th, 1999 began like any other day. Parents went to work, and the children went off to school. Neither worried about the other, or how their day would turn out. But, hours later everything changed (“Columbine Highschool Massacre.”). Little did the residents of Columbine, Colorado know their high school would be a statistic for one of the largest school massacres in US History. On this day, two teenage boys were responsible for killing 12 innocent students and a teacher, wounding 23 more students, and then killing themselves (Miller). While a horrific event, the Columbine tragedy improved the safety in schools by upgrading security systems, improving administration’s knowledge on school security, and increasing

While a handful of articles note the roles that guns, poverty, families, and the organization of schools may play in youth violence in general, when reporters mention research to explain the shooters’ behavior, the vast majority of studies cited concern media effects, suggesting that video games are a central

One of the most horrific shootings that scared America was the Columbine High School shooting of 1999. Though not the first mass shooting, this shooting was the first major school shooting with the death of 12 students, 1 teacher, and 21 injured. The two shooters were Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Both of the killers were white, male, and 18. They had both parents, were both a part of an

After several incidents, the school guard is told to watch Eric and Dylan. This day they were “going for the big kill” in a suicide attack to coincide with Adolf Hitler’s birthday on April 20th. That morning in Littleton, Colorado, Dylan and Eric went on a shooting spree at Columbine High School, killing 12 students and 1 teacher—and the two suicides of Dylan and Eric.

Despite the fact Anders Behring Breivik did not cause a school shooting, Breivik shot and killed sixty-eight people at a youth camp relating to the ways of killing bystanders in Call of Duty. Chris Harper-Mercer was another school shooter addicted to violent video games and learned to kill on the internet. Not only did Harper-Mercer share his massacre plan on an online chat room, but the others in the room encouraged him to do it too. After the event, the chat room still buzzed about the killings and even praised Harper-Mercer. “That score, ouch. Not even double digits on current reports,” was one of the online comments. People were complaining how disappointing Harper-Mercer’s “death toll score” was nine lives. The nation cannot ignore the “obvious link” connecting school shootings with violent video games

It is without a doubt that there has been an increase in violent crimes in schools throughout recent years. School shootings continue to become more and more common, especially in North America. Safety concerns for any and all students and staff in schools are at all all time high due to the high number of fatal and non-fatal occurring incidences. Since 2013 to the present, it is estimated that the United States has seen approximately 205 school shootings. Weekly, that is a shocking one shooting on average. Many of these shootings have resulted in the injuries and deaths of multiple of students and staff members. (Everytown Research, 2017) Evidently, school shootings are tragic events that affect so many more people than just the victims. However, these events are also interesting to look at from the psychological and sociological point of views. Through much research, it can be concluded that school shootings are a complex problem that are caused by a mix of improper brain development and societal and media influences which motivate school shooters to emerge. Psychological factors may include struggling with mental illnesses and/or abuse that leads to damaged brain development. Additionally, being bullied and/or the role of the media are examples of sociological factors.

The source from history.com describes the Columbine incident by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. They killed twelve students and a teacher with semiautomatic guns. Then when the SWAT team arrived at the school at around 3:00 PM, the dead bodies of the gunmen were found in the school. The gunmen committed suicide at around noon and twenty-three injured students were evacuated out of the school and into the hospital. Following the incident, an investigation was done on the motives of the shooters. It was suspected that the gunmen primarily targeted athletes, minorities and Christians. It was reported that a student Cassie Bernall was shot to death because she said she believed in god when asked by one of the gunmen. However, it was later determined that the shooters randomly chose their targets and had intended on bombing the cafeteria to potentially take hundreds of lives. Thankfully, the bombs never went off. It was discovered the Klebold and Harris regularly played DOOM, which was the most violent video game at the time.

Over the past couple of decades, school shooting have seemed to occur often-- continuously shocking the nation and reminding everyone that no community is exempt from such horror. One main contributor of this hysteria is found within the media. At the catalyst of this hysteria, lies the horrific Columbine shooting in 1999. Since then, school shootings have received ample coverage-- some argue that this has romanticized school shootings, others argue that is has provided condemning coverage of the often insane perpetrators. In the first year after the Columbine shooting, over 10,000 articles were written about the event, likely setting the stage for the nationwide desire for constant coverage of such events (Elsass et al, p. 445-446).

Jaclyn is an assistant professor of public justice at the State University of New York at Oswego. The author’s research interests focus on school and mass shootings in the United States regarding crime statistics, media representations, security and prevention, legislative responses, and other important considerations that impact individuals and communities struck by these tragedies. Jaymi Elsass is a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Texas State University, San Marcos, TX. Also, she is a lecturer and doctoral candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Texas State University. Her primary research interests include episodic violent crime, moral panics, fear of crime, and juvenile delinquency. Mark Stafford is a professor at

Sadly, we have all heard about the high number of mass shootings that suddenly occurred during the last five years, but perhaps what really shook the nation were the shootings which involved children. One shooting which took place in Colorado Springs, wherein a man with a gun decided to walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and began firing shots, killing three people and injuring nine. The people who were killed and injured were all innocent victims who died at the hands of an obvious mentally ill person. (Los Angeles Times, “Deadliest U.S. Mass Shootings”).