California School Shooting
On March 5, 2001 a fifteen year-old freshman at Santana High School in Santee, California shot and killed two classmates and wounded thirteen other people. The San Diego Country District Attorney, Paul Pfingst says, "The fifteen year-old will most likely be tried as an adult". One student John Schardt saw the shooter stepping out of the bathroom with a smile on his face while shooting rounds at people.
When the shooting started the faculty tried to evacuate the school before anyone was injured and it was said that it was utter chaos by some of the students and some off the students had no idea what was going on. One student, Alicia Zimmer said "there was a girl near her that was covered in blood and another that had blood on her arm." She also said "when the shots were being fired it was almost like a cap gun."
President Bush said that the shooting was a "disgraceful act of cowardice" and "when America teaches our children right form wrong and teaches values that respect life in our country, we'll be better off." He also said "First things are first. And our prayers go out to the families that lost a child today."
I think that this is crazy. Our teens today hardly know right from wrong it seems when things like this happening. I mean for a kid to be smiling while shooting at people it is lunacy. Our country's morals have declined so much in the past fifty years. This school shooting is one of many that have happened in the past two years. There was Columbine that pretty much started off all these and since then there has been nearly ten other shootings not all big but where one or more students have been injured or even killed. There was another shooting in California just two weeks after this one.
The question is what is driving all this violence with our youth today? Well I think that there are many factors that do so. Like, all the violence on television not just movies but even cartoons now days are nothing but fighting.
The deadliest school shooting to have ever happened in the United States at a high school or grade school, happened less than two years ago. On December 14th, 2012, Adam Lanza, who was twenty years old at the time, shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, four times and then brought firearms to his former grade school Sandy Hook Elementary, and fatally shot twenty children and six adults. Then the shooter put his own gun to his head and fatally shot himself. All of the children were between the ages of six and seven years old, and all six adults who were shot and killed were females who worked at the school. Lanza's father believed that if he were there himself, his son would have had no trouble shooting and killing him too. He also theorized that Adam shot his mother four times for each of them; himself, his mother, his father, and his brother. After the tragedy, the school was torn down and many gun-control debates heated up and schools greatly improved their security to prevent anymore potential attacks. To this day, the motive of Adam Lanza, is still unknown but the effects are still felt in the world today.
April 20th, 1999, Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, experienced a mass shooting. Thirteen people were injured and more than twenty were injured. Twelve were students and one was a teacher. Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their high school for forty one minutes before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. School shootings are notorious for making headline news but in 1999, school shooting were not as prevalent as they are in the present day. The media blew up on the catastrophe that was Columbine and many questions were raised, who were these kids and why did they do this? Speculation arose about why they did it. Maybe they were bullied for being goth and social outcasts or maybe they
"In October 1997, a 16-year old in Pearl, Mississippi, first killed his mother and then went to school and shot nine students, two fatally; in December 1997 a 14-year old went to his school in West Paducah, Kentucky, killed three students and wounded five others; in March last year, two boys, aged eleven and thirteen, killed four girls and a teacher outside their school in Jonesboro, Arkansas; the next month a science teacher was shot dead, allegedly by a 14-year old, at a school dance in Edinsboro, Pennsylvania; last May in Fayetteville, Tennessee, an 18-year old student allegedly shot dead a classmate in the school car park; two days later, in Springfield, Oregon, a 15-year old opened fire at his high school, killing two teenagers and wounding more than twenty (police later found that his parents had been killed at home) ("Lesson"). On April 20th of this year, two teenagers enter their school and open fire, killing 12 students and one teacher before taking their own lives.
In the final count, sixteen kids lay dead along with their teacher, another twelve kids were wounded plus the two adults who met the shooter at the door. Only one boy in the gym made it through physically unharmed his name was Robbie Hurst, and he survived by hiding under the dead bodies of his best friend and another classmate (Pederson).
On December 14th 2012, just 11 days before Christmas, an awful tragedy happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. This awful event left a lot of unanswered questions and rumors about that day. The reason for that is because the shooter killed himself after shooting twenty young children and six adults. This tragedy open the eyes of everyone; made you want to hug your loves one just a little tighter, appreciate what you still have and never take a day for granted. Even our president Barack Obama felt the pain of all those who lost their loved ones in this event. He insured everyone that he will do everything in his power to make sure a tragedy like this will not happen again. However, did you know that there have been over 44 school shootings since the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting? I know as a future teacher and mother I want to make sure my children are safe in this world and even at school. I want to be able to make a difference in this issue and have some knowledge to have I can do that. The society should understand what really happen during the Sandy Hook event, the reasons behind why school shootings/violence are rapidly increasing each year, and have some knowledge about what we, as a society, can do to help in order for us to start seeing a decrease of these events.
In honor of the heroes and heroines of this preposterous day, President Obama gives a heartbreaking speech about the Sandy Hook Shooting. The courageous fought for what was right. They showed how much a teacher is willing to do to protect the students. These people saved countless of children from death and parents from grief. It also sets an example, this admired other teachers to be more like them. Six staff members tried to stop a violence obsessed killer. These tragic figures will be remembered in the hearts of many people. If this happened in your school, would you be willing to give up this
1999) stated that 25 people were killed at the High School by two heavily armed
School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. Since 1764, the number of school shootings rose exponentially. In the 1990’s, eighty-six school shootings occurred and between 2000 and 2014, 110 shootings transpired since 2000 (Killam,2008). The development of semiautomatic weapons lead to an increase in deaths. A study conducted in 1990 found through the years of 1986 to 1990; 71 people died, 201 wounded, and 242 people held hostage by school shooters(Galvin). While the area a school serves as one factor in the number of violent acts committed per year, school shootings have not been connected to this. The schools in Chicago dealt with more violent acts, but Sandy Hook Elementary, a small city school had relatively few violent acts committed by students.
School shootings have altered American history greatly over the past two decades. From 1997 to 2007, there have been more than 40 school shootings, resulting in over 70 deaths and many more injuries. School shoot-outs have been increasing in number dramatically in the past 20 years. There are no boundaries as to how old the child would be, or how many people they may kill or injure. At Mount Morris Township, Michigan, on February 29th, 2000, there was a 6 year old boy who shot and killed another 6 year old girl at the Buell Elementary School with a .32 caliber pistol. And although many shootings have occurred at High Schools or Middle Schools, having more guns on those campuses would not be a good environment for children to grow up in. However, on a college campus, the pupils attending are not children anymore; the age range is from 17 to mid 20’s. Therefore they understand the consequences associated to the use of weapons and have gained more maturity. In April 16th, 2007, at Blacksburg, Virginia, there was a shooting rampage enacted by Sung-Hui Cho (23 years, from Centreville, VA) who fired over 170 rounds, killing 32 victims, before taking his own life at the Virginia Tech campus. Colleges and Universities would be a much safer place, for student and teacher, if guns were permitted on campus for self-defense purposes.
One of the most eye opening school shootings was on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Thirteen students were killed and twenty wounded in the middle of the day while attending school at Columbine High School. Two armed students opened fire just outside the building, then moved inside and gunned down more students and faculty members. This rampage lasting for just under 45 minutes. The students then turned the guns on themselves and ended their lives. The police did not show up in a reasonable time, which lead families to file lawsuits against the police department and the school. There was only one resource officer in the high school, during this time. He was located in the parking lot to watch kids drive in and out. One of the parents of the victims said, "There was no one in that school that had a gun other than the two killers, and ...
... which happens to be closer to home for the people attending Rend Lake. Honestly it scares the crap out of me knowing that at any time someone could just start shooting people at random. There have been several of things in school shootings that need to be closely examined. Some of these include the way people act while attending school and if anything may be fishy, the several different patterns these killers seem to be using, their family background, and their media influences. We must also look at what the significance of this tragedy could further entail, such as what could possibly happen again and just how comfortable you really feel with students and teachers being armed. School security around the world should buckle down and put an end to school shootings before, yet another repetition of the Virginia Tech massacre takes place and claims even more lives.
There are many different types of school violence. The one that gets the most public attention is school shootings. The term school shooting is basically defined as an act where a student, school staff member, or intruder from the outside commits an act on the school campus. One of the most well known school shootings took place at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado. On a Tuesday April 20,1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, students at Columbine High School, took the lives of thirteen other students before taking the lives of their own. When we think of events like this, we have many questions that go through our mind. Thoughts like why did this happen, could it have been prevented, and how did impact the individuals involved just to name a few. There are probably several more thoughts that go through the minds of a nation when we hear about traumatic evens such as a school shooting.
A former-student who was expelled entered his old school and murdered seventeen people inside and outside the school. Nikolas Cruz walked into his former school and opened fire on people. Also, he triggered the fire alarm to create more confusion and panic and more opportunities to kill. Parents lined up nearby outside tensely, waiting and hoping to see their children again. Many students caught the events on camera and have posted videos of it. Twelve people were killed by Cruz inside the school and the rest outside including a random person standing on a street corner. Cruz also had a gas mask and used smoke grenades in his attack. It has been later revealed that Cruz was obsessed with a girl at the school and was stalking her. This event
alarm and shot at the students filing out of the school. Five were killed and ten were wounded.
On April 9th 1999, Eric Klebold and Dylan Harris entered Columbine High School and after shooting 11 people inside the school, the two boys shot themselves. March 5th 2001, Charles “Andy” Williams began shooting inside Santana High School in Santee, California killing 2 students and injuring 13 others. In another incident four students and one teacher were killed as well as 10 other people wounded outside a middle school in Arkansas while student shooters fired shots from the nearby woods during a false fire alarm. In recent news Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge in New York after another student secretly showed streaming video of a sexual encounter between Tyler and another boy, and Megan Meir hung herself after a group of neighborhood kids created a fake face book profile to taunt her . While there are multiple theories for the actions in these incidents one of the common underlying themes in all these incidents is bullying.