School Shootings

If someone were to rely solely on television media, it wouldn't surprise me if he/she thought that America's schools were being taken over by these so-called "juvenile super predators." The American people would assume that every quiet kid who gets picked on is going to turn around in school one day and start unloading his newly acquired firearms on his peers. This is hardly the case. While there may be an occasional "super-predator," the media has highly over publicized these rare, extraordinary events. Perhaps the most notorious school massacre was at Columbine High School. It was here, in 1999, that two male students murdered twelve students, one teacher, and then committed suicide (Internet Site #4). We viewed a film, The Killer at Thurston High, and saw Kip Kinkel not only shoot up his high school, but also murder his parents. These few extraordinary children strike fear in the hearts of America's parents every morning when they send their own children off to school. However, the likelihood of a child being murdered as a result of a school-associated violent incident is less than one in one million, and less than one percent of children murdered in 1992 and 1993 were killed on school property (Kappeler, 187). The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports that the likelihood of a child dying in a school related incident is actually one in two million (Brooks, 1)! The National Commission on Child Abuse and Neglect reports that 2,000 to 3,000 children are murdered annually by their parents, opposed to approximately two-dozen children murdered in schools (Kappeler, 187).
It seems to go hand in hand that while people are being convinced that school murders are occurring more frequently, various types of school violence also seem to be rising. This is once again a myth. The United States Departments of Education and Justice distributed a survey to students both in 1989 and 1995. It was reported that the students only felt a .1% increase in the total