Can school shootings be prevented

Violence - School Shootings

IS it POSSIBLE to PREVENT SCHOOL SHOOTINGS?

School shootings have occurred periodically in the United States and the rest of the world ever since Charles Whitman, a University of Texas engineering student, took up his sniper position in the Bell Tower above the campus, killing 16 people and wounding another 31 before being killed by police in 1966 (USSS & UDDOE 2002).

Since then, some of the most infamous incidents include the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado that took 15 lives and the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre that accounted for more deaths (33) than any other American school shooting.

Public safety officials and many local, state, and federal government agencies have devoted significant resources to understanding the phenomenon. A collaborative effort between the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Education produced a comprehensive manual for addressing the threat on school campuses, but it is unlikely that even the best approaches can ever eliminate future school shootings for several specific reasons.

School Bullying and Other Psychological Factors:

Adolescence is a difficult period of development even in the best of circumstances. One of the most common, age-old dynamics of childhood and public education is the social phenomenon of bullying behavior, which, in some cases, can even leave emotional scars that last into adulthood. Whereas the vast majority of bullying victims never resort to murdering their victimizers or to indiscriminately murdering others, social ostracism and peer rejection is a commonly shared trait among many of those who perpetrate school shootings (USSS & USDOE 2002).

Other psychological factors that play a role in many school shootings include dysfunctional family relationships, domestic violence, and in some cases, even excessive parental expectations and self imposed educational performance anxiety or perceived failure to achieve personal goals. Sometimes, these factors trigger clinical depression and suicide attempts; other times, they may manifest themselves in externally-focused violence.

Since the Columbine tragedy in 1999, school authorities have devoted considerably more attention to excluding weapons from educational facilities and in several instances, public awareness of the potential danger of school shootings has led to the identification of potential perpetrators before the fact. Unfortunately no school is completely impervious to the threat of smuggled weapons.

Gun Control:

Gun ownership is a highly charged political issue with many Americans equating the right to bear arms as a fundamental component of constitutionally protected freedoms. The National Rifle Association (NRA) enjoys a powerful lobbying position in Washington (Schwartz 2008) dedicated to its continuing opposition to gun control. As a result, both handguns and long guns are available in many states, with more than half of American households owning one or more firearms.

This perpetual access to deadly weapons is the primary reason that completely eliminating school shootings may be impossible. Schoolyard bullying, low self-esteem, dysfunctional families and troubled teens who fantasize about lashing out violently will always be factors in the educational institution environment, despite continual efforts to address them. Access to firearms in combination with these contributing elements is the deadly mix that will likely continue to enable disaffected individuals to act out violent urges that would otherwise be manifested in less serious ways.

Publicity and the Copycat Phenomenon:

One of the well-known disadvantages of ratings-based media sensationalism is that certain individuals will emulate the violence they publicize, which has been documented in more than a few written testimonials of school shooting perpetrators as well as in interviews with suspects implicated in disrupted school shooting plans. This is not unique to school shootings in particular but is a more general phenomenon evident in myriad forms, in both criminal and non-criminal human behavior in the age of mass media. In relation to indiscriminant shootings, this was precisely the case in the 2007 Westroads Mall shooting in Omaha Nebraska in which a 19-year-old killed 8 people, as well as in the earlier Virginia Tech shooting.

Conclusion: