School shootings

Taken from Columbine High School Shootings — April 20, 1999 of the Jefferson... 

Columbine High School Shootings (DVD),. Jefferson County Sheriff s Office, Colorado. April 20, 1999. 

A deranged gunman opens fire on a playground in Stockton, California, killing five schoolchildren. Such school shootings will become a major spur to gun control efforts in the 1990s. 

Ayoob, Massad. Arm Teachers to Stop School Shootings. The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 1999, p. A12. Suggests that having some trained and qualified teachers with weapons in school could prevent mass killings like the Littleton High School shootings. 

Levin, Bob. Casualties of the Right to Bear Arms Today s Outcasts Can Grab a Handy Semiautomatic and. Taking Cool Moves from the Latest Flick, Go Kill Their Classmates. Maclean s, May 3, 1999, p. 27. Author provides a Canadian pro-gun control viewpoint on the Columbine High School shootings. Levin ridicules the U.S. gun culture in recounting his personal experience with aspects of it. 

Wolcott, Jennifer. Parent-to-Parent Is the Gun Safely Stored The Christian Science Monitor, May 26, 1999, p. 15. Discusses approaches to parents talking to their neighbors about the safe storage of firearms. The recent school shootings can provide a springboard for such discussion while concern is high. 

Time to Aim Our Outrage at the Gun Lobby. National Catholic Reporter, vol. 34, April 3, 1998, p. 36. Recites the sad litany of school shootings such as those at West Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas. The article says that it is time to react as Americans would react to deaths in a senseless war or as they have reacted to the tobacco companies—and take on the gun lobby. 

Wilson, Chris Oliver. Disarming News Why Bobbies Have No Guns. U.S. News World Report, vol. 124, February 9, 1998, pp. 46ff. Describes the total ban on handguns that Britain put into effect in response to the 1996 school shootings at Dunblane, Scotland, that left 16 dead. Wilson notes that 95 percent of British police officers are unarmed, and four out of five say they do not wish to carry guns. 

R. Burns and C. Crawford, School Shootings the media and public fear ingredients for a moral panic . Crime,Law and Social Change 32/2 (1999). 

Elizabeth Donohue, et al.. School House Hype school shooting and the real risks kids face in America, Justice Policy Institution, Washington DC, 1998. 

The ontbreak of school shootings in the 1990s, especially the horrific events at Columbine, focused America s attention on school safety unlike at any other time... 

In a 2011 report by the National Center for Education Statistics on crime, violence, discipline, and safety in U.S. public schools, only 41% of schools had a written plan for instances where the National Terrorism Advisory Systan (which replaced the Homeland Security Advisory System based on color-coded levels) alert indicates an imminent threat. This is compared with 95% of schools that reported having a written plan for natural disasters and 94% of schools that reported having a written plan for bomb threats (Neiman and Hill, 2011). Additionally, the same report notes that a higher percentage of suburban schools drilled students on a written plan describing procedures to be performed during a school shooting (58%) than did city schools or rural schools (49 and 48%, respectively) (Neiman and HiU, 2011). 

While these statistics offer hope, others have dismissed them as overly optimistic. Realistically, a major organizational crisis can be expected in a moderatesized to large school district almost every year (Pitcher Poland, 1992) (Poland McCormick, 1999). Calming parents and the public is a job often assigned to the school mental health specialist. The task for school crisis responders, therefore, is to strike a balance between irrational fear on the one hand and reasonable preparation for probable crises on the other. One way to accomplish this balance is to review current reports about school safety and violence. The National Center for Educational Statistics (http //www.nces.ed.gov/index.html) publishes an annual report on U.S. schools crime data. An excellent review of targeted school shootings is the United States Secret Service Report written by Vossekuil et al. (2000). 

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