2008 Woodie Awards
Society doesn't kill students, statistical outliers do
A dose of skepticism
Sam Lavalee
Issue date: 10/30/06 Section: Opinion
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The school shooting at Columbine in 1999 shocked the United States. The idea that children were not safe at a school, of all places, made parents of school-aged children ill with fear.
Since that time the public seems to have slowly forgotten about violence in schools. That is until September 27, when the first of three school shootings in a week reclaimed the media spotlight.
Although three school shootings in six days is an unprecedented phenomenon, school violence is currently declining. A recent article in The Economist cites that, "Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s; children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them."
The meaning of these incidents has even experts scratching their heads.
While the victims of these events were all women, the same economist article cites that rates of violence against women are also down. All three shootings were suicides, leading others to argue that these incidents are a result of a change in the way people commit suicide.
The gun-control debate can go either way. Stricter gun-control would help keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, while relaxing the law might lead more teachers to carry concealed weapons and be able to prevent these incidents.
One article in The Spectator argues that the killing in the Amish school in Pennsylvania may imply that sheltering a community from modern reality is responsible for this specific incident.
"Even the Amish of Lancaster County, Pa., cannot protect themselves from guilt by association. That's a pretty sobering thought. It also helps illustrate the uselessness of wishing the world were something it is not. We cannot make ourselves safe by going about our business and hoping the rest of the world will leave us alone. The world will not."
However, the author uses this argument to explain why blaming women's pro or anti-gun control groups for tragedies like this is problematic. If the natural response to a chain of events such as recent school shootings is to place blame, then where does the blame lie here?
Since that time the public seems to have slowly forgotten about violence in schools. That is until September 27, when the first of three school shootings in a week reclaimed the media spotlight.
Although three school shootings in six days is an unprecedented phenomenon, school violence is currently declining. A recent article in The Economist cites that, "Violence in schools has fallen by half since the mid-1990s; children are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered outside the school walls than within them."
The meaning of these incidents has even experts scratching their heads.
While the victims of these events were all women, the same economist article cites that rates of violence against women are also down. All three shootings were suicides, leading others to argue that these incidents are a result of a change in the way people commit suicide.
The gun-control debate can go either way. Stricter gun-control would help keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, while relaxing the law might lead more teachers to carry concealed weapons and be able to prevent these incidents.
One article in The Spectator argues that the killing in the Amish school in Pennsylvania may imply that sheltering a community from modern reality is responsible for this specific incident.
"Even the Amish of Lancaster County, Pa., cannot protect themselves from guilt by association. That's a pretty sobering thought. It also helps illustrate the uselessness of wishing the world were something it is not. We cannot make ourselves safe by going about our business and hoping the rest of the world will leave us alone. The world will not."
However, the author uses this argument to explain why blaming women's pro or anti-gun control groups for tragedies like this is problematic. If the natural response to a chain of events such as recent school shootings is to place blame, then where does the blame lie here?
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
purcellville
Mike
posted 10/31/06 @ 11:50 PM EST
I'm not sure what Lavalee's point is. The questions "what are the psychological/sociological roots of a violent person's actions" is the same question as "what the f--k is wrong with this person" it's just put in slang. (Continued…)
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