School Shootings

1. School Shootings Dustin Harrison

2. Facts In their study of school shootings, the Secret Service found: • Most school shootings occur during the school day, with some happening before or after • All of the attackers were males • Most of the attackers used guns; some used more than one • Most attacks were done alone, with a few involving more than one shooter or another person helping in the planning of the school shooting • The study also found that such attacks are almost always planned. The attackers usually did not threaten their victims beforehand, but other students knew that the attacker was planning something. In over half of the cases, a peer influenced or encouraged the shooter in their plans. Also, in most cases adults noticed behavior prior to the attack that worried them.

3. Recent Shootings • Feb. 10, 2012Walpole, New Hampshire A 14-year-old student shot himself in front of 70 fellow students. • Feb. 27, 2012Chardon, Ohio At Chardon High School, a former classmate opened fire, killing three students and injuring six. Arrested shortly after the incident, the shooter said that he randomly picked students. • March 6, 2012Jacksonville, Florida Shane Schumerth, a 28-year-old teacher at Episcopal High School, returned to the campus after being fired and shot and killed the headmistress, Dale Regan, with an assault rifle. • March 19, 2012Toulouse, France Mohammed Merah, a French man of Algerian descent, shot and killed a rabbi, two of his children, and another child at a Jewish school. Police believe he had earlier shot and killed three paratroopers. Merah said he was a member of Al Qaeda and that he was seeking revenge for the killing of Palestinian children. • April 2, 2012Oakland, Calif. One Goh, a 43-year-old former student at Oikos University, a Ch • ristianschool populated by mostly Korean and Korean-Americans, opened fire on the campus, killing seven people and wounding several others. July 20, 2012Aurora, Colo. During a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman opens fire on the crowded theater. At least 12 people are killed and 38 others are wounded. The suspect, James Holmes, set off a smoke device in the front of the theater before opening fire. Directly after the incident, Holmes, age 24, was arrested in a parking lot behind the theater. • August 5, 2012Oak Creek, Wis. A gunman opens fire at a Sikh temple, killing six people and wounding three. Police shot and killed the suspect, Wade Michael Page, after the attack. Page, a neo-Nazi, served in the U.S. Army from 1992 to 1998. • December 11, 2012Portland, Ore. Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, opened fire in the Clackamas Town Center mall, located 11 miles from downtown Portland, Oregon. Using an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle, Roberts killed two people and wounded one other. He then took his own life. • December 14, 2012Newtown, Conn. Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six others at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He killed his mother, Nancy, at her home prior to the massacre at the school. Lanza committed suicide after the rampage. The shooting was the second deadliest in U.S. history, behind the 2007 shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute that claimed 32 people. Read more: Time Line of Worldwide School Shootings — Infoplease.comhttp://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html#ixzz2IuAHbxRp

4. Reasons why people do this Retaliation • Students that have been bullied or abused at school often feel like they are not in control of their own lives. They feel that they have been severely wronged and that no one will advocate for them or do anything about it. When this occurs, that child can decide to take matters into his own hands and retaliate against those who have wronged him. This is not only a form of retaliation but a means by which he can take control back in his own life. Lack of Attention at Home or School • Students who are abused at home or are ignored will often feel as if their lives do not matter. In some situations, students feel that if they make a large enough scene, they can get the attention that they want. In the most extreme occasions, this can lead to a school shooting in an effort to get that attention. This is often coupled with a child's being bullied as well but may occur as a standalone reason if the situation is bad enough. Outside Influence • Students who listen to hateful music, do drugs or play violent video games often get a romanticized vision of violence. Whether this is because of the drugs or the poor media influence, this can often result in that student becoming increasingly violent toward others, eventually erupting in a fit of rage during a school shooting. In this situation, students who engage in school shootings do not necessarily have a vendetta against anyone in particular but have become poisoned with the outside influences and lose their sense of reality. Other Contributing Factors • Many other factors can affect school shootings and why they occur. These reasons include boredom, peer pressure, lack of academic motivation, suicidal tendencies, paranoia, mental disorders, firearm availability and poor value of life. Though these reasons are rarely the sole cause of a school shooting, one or more of them are often found in collaboration with one of the more serious reasonsRead more: Three Reasons for a School Shooting | eHow.comhttp://www.ehow.com/info_8017314_three-reasons-school-shooting.html#ixzz2IuAowNQc

5. Gun used in most shootings • The most common used weapon in school shootings seems to be a .22 handgun.

6. First school shooting • The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four LenapeAmerican Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only three children survived.[1]

7. Pictures of shooters