Essay on Kids, Schools and Guns

The lives of everyone in the town of Springfield Oregon changed on May 21st of 1998. A quiet boy named Kip Kinkel became known as “The Killer at Thurston High” after killing both of his parents, murdering two classmates, and severely injuring 24 others. There are many factors in the 15 year old boy’s life that led up to the horrific events that occurred on that day. The same factors that influenced the tragedy in occurring could have very easily insured that it never happened to begin with. On May 20th of 1998 Kip Kinkel was suspended from Thurston High for possession of a gun in his locker.

Together, the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook school shootings resulted in seventy-seven deaths. Gun related school violence continues to occur and has become more frequent in the recent years. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed one teacher and twelve students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20th, 1999. In the shooting, they injured twenty other students before they turned their guns on themselves. Columbine, one of the first school shootings, caused a progression of gun-related violence in schools.

There have been twenty eight school shootings in the United States and that includes colleges and High schools. (17 February, 2014) In Nevada a student brought a handgun to school which he had stolen from his parents and left two students wounded and one teacher dead. Mike Landsberry was the math teacher who was shot while attempting to stop the gunman. (Johnston) Another shooting on August 30th 2006 occurred when a nineteen year old in a trench coat started shooting in his old high schools parking lot. (Robertz) Another shooting took place on January 2014 when a twelve year old seventh grader shot two classmates and was eventually taken into custody.

A seemingly normal school day in Newtown, Connecticut, who knew that it would turn into one of the most devastating days of they would ever experience. About 2 years ago, students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut were involved in the most devastating event of the year. According to an article by the Huffington Post, a mentally troubled man in his twenties named Adam Lanza shot 20 children and six staff members, with his mother’s weapons. His mother had apparently grown up with guns and thought it would be good to have in their house. Prior to driving to the school, he even shot his mother, but his motive is unknown.

A six year old pulled the trigger, and a five year old fell dead. In Illinois, two teens found a handgun in their grandmother's apartment. The gun went off in the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy, killing his fifteen-year-old cousin. In Michigan, a six-year-old boy found a handgun in a shoebox at the house where he was staying with an uncle. He took the gun to school, pulled it out of his pocket, and shot a girl in his first-grade class.

Lanza killed twenty children and also killed six teachers. After killing the most people, he thought that he could, he took a fatal shot to the head that he caused by himself. The second most recent school shooting that was all over the media was in April of 2007. This shooting took place at Virginia technical institute. A senior, Seung-Hui Cho, walked onto campus with sinister intentions.

Kip Kinkel allegedly walked into Thurston High School and opened fire just 24 hours after being suspended for having a gun at school. One student was killed, nineteen others wounded, and Kinkel's parents were reportedly found dead in their home afterwards. His friends voted him "Most Likely to Start World War III". Kinkel was described as looking for trouble and cursing both students and teachers. Friends say he bragged about building bombs, torturing animals, and wanting to kill people.

Gun Control Debate: Supporting Gun Control On the morning of December 14, 2012 at approximately 9:30 am, tragedy broke in the small town school of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut. The lives of 27 innocent people were taken. The gunman Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 schoolchildren, 6 adult staff members and his own mother’s before turning the gun on himself. This incident has since been branded the second deadliest mass shooting, next to the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre. The tragedy ignited a very controversial debate about the regulation of guns more known as gun control.

In December of 2012, a young man named Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, armed and ready to kill. He shot twenty innocent children and six adults, not including himself. All twenty-six people had been killed immediately and police did not arrive on the scene fast enough to prevent the massacre. Adam Lanza was a mentally ill man with Asperger’s syndrome. He had taken the lives of these innocent children and adults with an AR-15.

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.