There has been a recent rash of school shootings, both successful and unsuccessful, in this country.
On Aug. 24, Christopher Williams walked into a Vermont elementary school looking for his ex-girlfriend who was a teacher there. When he failed to find her, he fatally shot one teacher and wounded a second before shooting himself twice in the head.
On Sept. 21, according to the Associated Press, three high school seniors in Green Bay were were charged with conspiracy to commit homicide for allegedly planning to attack a school with guns and bombs. On Sept. 27, a drifter by the name of Duane Morrison held six female students hostage in a Colorado high school, killing one girl before turning the gun on himself.
On Sept. 29, 15-year-old Eric Hainstock walked into school, reportedly carrying more than one weapon, and shot and killed his high school principal.
On October 2, Charles Roberts entered a one-room Amish schoolhouse, murdering four girls and himself, with a fifth girl dying the next day because of her injuries.
Also on October 2, a Las Vegas teen was spotted on a high school campus carrying a gun.
A pattern emerges.
The idea that there are school districts where someone, Joe Nobody off the street, can just walk into a school without being questioned is frightening. In our post-Columbine society, the idea verges on sounding completely ludicrous.
According to a Chicago Tribune article dated Oct. 3, Chicago Public Schools [CPS], for example, has required manned metal detectors in high schools and monitored entry points at elementary schools since 1996.
That’s well and good for CPS, but what about smaller school districts? Do they have plans in place? And does everyone know what the plan is?
More importantly, what can we do to quell this? It’s easy to try and lay blame on any one thing: blame the media, blame the parents, blame society in general. But maybe it s more important that we actually try to stop it before we figure it all out.