Shootings in School

In light of recent events, like the Virginia Tech shooting, shootings in schools in the US have become more common. Since the shooting at Columbine High School in April of 1999 school shootings have increased leaving more dead or injured. Before the Virginia Tech shooting on Monday, the Columbine shooting had been the biggest school shooting. In looking over the past 8 months (September 2006-April 2007) there have been 5 school shootings. This number is outrageous and need to stop. No matter how big or small a school shooting is this type of violence needs to end.

Violence or harm to others is not the key to solving our problems. Many of these school shootings have been to retaliate against the people the shooter(s) has felt did them wrong or to just inflict pain on other because the shooter(s) themselves are hurting. This is not how society should teach it young people to fix their problems, but instead show the young community that their problems can be fixed by using their words. If it seems like their words are not being heard, they should know that they can always go to their parents, teachers, counselors, or other school administrators for help.

The only way we can help reduce the number of school shooting is by staying more alert of our surroundings and the people around us. When we see someone hurting or disturbed, we should not make fun of them, but instead see what we can do to help them. We cannot force people to get help, but when another person shows interest in helping out that person, it might be the one thing that will keep that person for going off the deep end.

The major groups that are involved in school shooting are the administrators of schools, law enforcement, the victims, the victims’ families, the shooter, and the shooter own family. The victims of the shooting and their families may hate the shooter for what he or she did and want revenge/justice, but that does not help prevent more shooting from happening. Revenge just fuels the fire even more. With each shooting that has occurred, big or small, we as human and individuals need to learn from our mistakes. We need to be aware of why someone would want to shoot and kill people in their school and see what signs we missed so that we can prevent another shooting for happening. As for the shooter, we need to see what drove this person to such extreme measures to want to kill innocent school members. Also why do they shoot themselves? We also need to find ways to alert the authorities so that they can respond faster to these types of situations.

The killing of students and school administrators is tragic, especially the Virginia Tech Massacre. As a society we need to find a way to show our young people that violence is not the way to solve our problems, if we do not cut out or limit the violence acts that lead to school shootings our nations is due for more tragedy.