School Shootings: Offenders Mind

Introduction School Shootings A number of cases have been examined with hopes of uncovering features that school shooters have in common in regards to family life, personalities, histories, and behaviors. Not only are they examined for that reason, but to also shed light on how they are different. Statistically speaking school shootings have been a very rare occurrence, but they are societal issues nonetheless. However, the reasons in which a person chooses to commit these horrific crimes is still very bleak, and mysterious in many ways. Video games, music, and movies are often chosen as scapegoats in regards to contributing factors, but many times what is forgotten is the family structure, role models, and peer influences of these individuals that leads to them being traumatized, psychotic, or psychopathic, three categories that many of these shooters fall into. Within this paper I will be discussing my findings on the factors that lead to the shaping, and molding of these offenders minds, and what is being done in order to decrease the number of occurrences in our society. Although there are traits that all shooters share, we have to be cautious when it comes to associating students to those of a school shooter. Authors Brandi Booth, Vincent Van Hasselt and Gregory Vecchi stated , “It is important to caution against the use of a profile because many apparent warning signs may be irrelevant and restrictive and even could unfairly categorize a student who may not pose danger.” (Booth, Hasselt, and Vecchi, 2011).
History and Statistics in Regards to Violence in Schools School shootings in the United States of America dates back to the mid 1700's but the first recorded occurrence of the student as the perpetrator, was in 1853. Matthew F. Ward (1853), a writer for the New York times had written a news report about a school shooting in which a teacher was killed by a students brother because he disagreed with the harsh punishment that had been given to his