Mass School Shootings in America

"What caused these school shootings, I don't pretend to know, and I don't know that it's knowable."

- Robert A. Fein, forensic psychologist

In considering how I would respond to the provided prompt, I thought that it might be best to first take a look at what others had to say on the subject; what do other teens feel is the source of the rise in school violence, and how do the "experts" explain this disturbing trend?

In my quest to discover what other students had to say, I searched "school violence" on Planetpapers.com, a web site where students can post papers that they have written to be viewed by other students. Several students had submitted papers offering broad explanations of and proposed answers to our harrowing dilemma. One student "blamed" the sale of illegal drugs, claiming that students sold drugs in order to buy guns, and inevitably used these guns on others. In other words, her theory was less drugs equals less guns equals less violence. Another student argued that parents are responsible for the rise in school violence, as many school shooters find the guns they use in their shootings in their own homes. According to the student, if parents would responsibly care for their firearms, children would not have such easy access and thus school violence would no longer be a problem. A third student offered violence in video games as a possible cause for the rise in school violence. This student, however, gave no suggestion of how we might address school violence.

Drugs cause school violence! It's the parents' fault! Violent video games encourage children to act violently in their schools! I don't buy it. Overall I think I would have to agree with Robert A. Fein, a forensic psychologist with the Secret Service, who admits, "What caused these school shootings, I don't pretend to know, and I don't know that it's knowable." The truth is that until we have the ability to reach into the minds of these young killers and monitor their every thought we will never know what it is that prompts them to resort violence, and even then we might never understand it. What I believe to be important is that we don't point fingers. Let us say that we all agree that it is the media's "fault," that real-world violence is undoubtedly connected with violence in the media.