School Shootings

School Shootings

I. Cases of where this has happened

A. Columbine High School massacre

B. Montreal, Canada shooting

II. How can it be prevented

A. Metal detectors

1. Efficiency

2. Private rights

B. School Resource officers

1. Intimidating

2. Friend

C. School Surveillance

1. Cost

2. Effectiveness

D. Counseling

III. Who is committing these crimes?

A. Students

B. Outcasts at school

C. How they form groups

IV. Why is this happening?

A. Teasing

B. Lost of old friends

C. Hate groups

V. Conclusion

School Shootings

I would like to first start off by saying that there have been forty five school shootings since 1996 to October 2006. I for one think this is an outrageous amount of shootings and is also one too many after the first one. I'll be the first to admit that there will be violence in school since that is nearly impossible to prevent. Just think of when you where in grade school, there has always been bullies in each grade all the way up to high school. Even in the workplaces now a days there are bullies. I also personally think that school shootings feed off of each other. When a crazed teenager seems to be off track and has no other direction to go they seem to take out there anger on there fellow students. When students see how this affects other communities they realize how big of an impact they can cause, it seems like a better idea to them.

The first major world known shooting was on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. At the tragic school shooting there were twelve students and one teacher killed along with the two students who committed the crimes committed suicide for a total of fourteen deaths. There were also twenty-three others who were wounded at Columbine High School. The ones who plotted out the deadliest school shooting ever was eighteen year old Eric Harris and seventeen year old Dylan Klebold. Their original game plan took a year to plot and to kill at least five-hundred and blow up their school in doing so.

One of the other most deadly shootings ever took place in Montreal, Canada. This shooting took place on September thirteenth of this year (2006). The shooter was twenty-five year old Kimveer Gill who opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon at Dawson College. He killed Anastasia De Sousa at the age 18 along with wounding more than a dozen students and faculty. Gill killed himself.

There has been three incidents after the Montreal shooting such as the hostage situation in Colorado where one girl was killed, another incident was that a fifteen year old boy shot and killed his principal in Wisconsin, and the last one being the one in the Pennsylvania where 10 Amish girls were hostage and five of them were shot and killed.

I choose the Montreal shooting and the Columbine shooting because I see some similarities which I will go in to depth later on in this paper.

While all of these terrible triages are happening there is still one question in everybody's mind. That question would be "How can this all be prevented?" To some people this question may seem simple but that is because they don't know the impact that each of the prevention methods can have on the school.

The use of metal detectors has become a hot issue in many schools. Some schools argue that metal detectors are intrusive, unconstitutional, ineffective, and unnecessary. Others argue that metal detectors are non-intrusive, efficient, and essential to create safer schools. Who is right you may ask yourself? Neither party is right because there are pros and cons on each side of this issue. Metal detectors when used properly can be highly effective in preventing violence in schools, but at the same time they do not work as a perfect solution. They can not single-handedly eliminate violence in schools. Not to mention they do nothing to prevent violence outside of the schools. If you were to ask me, I'd say that even if the metal detectors did not completely end school violence, it would still be better than having no metal detectors. The metal detectors help prevent the deadly school violence.

Along with metal detectors schools could institute a school resource officer. A school resource officer is a police officer that is within the school grounds during school hours. Having a school resource officer on duty would intimidate the students and make them feel more secure at school at the same time. Another great advantage of having a school resource officer is to even the playing field. If a student was to come to school with a gun with the means to murder another student the officer would be there to take him out. Sure this may sound cruel but at the same time would you want your son or daughter to be the next victim in line?

Another way a school resource officer would help is by also being a friend or roll model to the students to look up to. If the students had more of person to look up to and go to for advice I think they would be more likely to tell them about a shady character who has thoughts of committing a violent act.

The federal government in 1994 began requiring school safety programs in an attempt to crack down on violence on school grounds. Many schools introduced metal detectors to check for guns, knives

and other weapons. Having the metal detectors would make those who used to bring weapons to school to stop that behavior since they would no long be able to sneak them in.

After this has been in affect for a year it actually shows a lot of improvement from the year before. Violent deaths on high school grounds dropped from fifty to half of that number in 1995.

Another great way of trying to prevent school crime is to put surveillance cameras in schools