NursingLink

The copycat effect is what happens when the media makes an event into a "hot death story" and then via behavior contagion, it funnels in more Murder-suicides, into a regularly predictive cycle.

In my opinion, the birth of the "modern era" of classic “school rampage shootings” began in the USA January 29, 1979 with Brenda Spencer(16) firing at the Cleveland Elementary School from her home across the street." When asked why she did it, she stated; “I just don't like Mondays." Which became a song of the Boomtown Rats. On May 20, 1988, Laurie Dann (30) of Winnetka, IL, walked into Hubbard Woods Elementary School and began shooting kids, she fled the scene, killed a bystander then killed herself. On February 2, 1996, in Moses Lake, WA Barry Loukaitis (14), carried out his murder rampage in his algebra class. Loukaitis then turned to the class and said "This sure beats algebra, doesn't it?" The quotation is from the book, Rage, the book is about a school shooting of an algebra teacher.

From 1999 to 9/11 all the “major news coverage” school shootings were perpetrated by rural and suburban white males. After, 9/11 other ethnicities began showing up as the shooters. Nevertheless, they all were males. This past Friday, February 8, 2008, at Baton Rouge, Louisiana Tech killings has come full circle, the woman has returned to the “front page.” February 14, 2008, Stephen Kazmierczak, DEKALB, Ill, Witnesses said the gunman, dressed in black and wearing a stocking cap, emerged from behind a screen on the stage of 200-seat Cole Hall and opened fire.

I write this because I believe that from what I have learned from the recent past (significant) trend changes, there will more surprise school/student shootings. We as parents and students need to make our schools proactive and not reactive with their safety/security policy and procedures. I would like to say that we challenge our school security staff to look for security improvements and take an immediate aggressive approach in student/staff safety. Trends show that the red zone days are from February 9, 2008 to April 26, 2008. Be aware. Be alert. Be safe.

The scary part is that in all the cases, the acts have been planned ahead of time, and most of the shooters have given oral, visual or symbolic warnings prior to commencing the shootings, but no one ever has taken them serious, not until after the fact.

I say the media should stop "glamorizing" these shootings. Every person doing the shootings had one thing in common...blaze of glory and being remebered in one sense or another. If we stop paying attention to these people and focus on safety and prevention, then maybe they wouldnt get the satisfaction they need.

I dont think everything can or should be blamed on the parents. Im not just talking about school shootings. There are mall shootings, etc. Most are adults or are teens who have enough sense to know what is right and what is wrong. You learn that regardless at age 6. These people have some serious mental problems.
Granted some parents, not all, need to grow up and be parents or whatever but to blame them or others for someone elses doing...I dont think so. These teens, etc. need to take responsibility and acountablility for their own actions. There are always more than just two choices in a situation and they chose the wrong option.

I think both dmazement and al are right about certain issues. I have a very good friend who works for our local school system as a sub (he has an elementary ed degree but is in grad school). He tells me that his "problem" kids come from homes where the parents are disengaged or have poor parenting skills. These kids often gravitate to him because he enforces the rules of common courtesty. Kids WANT structure and rules.

OTOH, the school shooters are a different story. Parenting is not necessarily the issue. Many of these kids have come from decent homes. Some have not. They are usually the "oddball" kids who don't fit in with their peers. They see news stories of murder-suicides all the time: fathers killing their kids and then themselves after a contentious divorce for example. Women do the same sorts of things (Susan Smith, who drowned her kids because her boyfriend didn't like them).

In the case of the 3rd graders: I think these kids created this scenario as a video game like response to vent anger. Most of the kids later reported not being serious and probably weren't. The fact they came up with this idea tho, tells society that we need to address the issue of violence in society at all levels, and re-institute standards of acceptable behavior. However, that won't work in today's huge blackboard jungles. Smaller schools with smaller classes are easier to control, and kids are less likely to fall into the herd mentality.