Adolescent Alienated And Armed
In 1940, public school teachers ranked the top seven disciplinary problems at public schools. They were talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise, running in the hall, cutting in line, dress code violations, and littering. By 1990, the top seven disciplinary problems had changed somewhat. They were now drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery, and assault (Harris 20).
Just pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news. You may question whether America's schools are still safe places for children. The recent spree of school shootings is dominating headlines nationwide and sending policy makers, parents, teachers and other concerned citizens into a tailspin. Since October, incidents of school shootings by students, some as young as 10, have occurred at sickeningly regular intervals across the country. From Pearl, Miss., to Jonesboro, Ark., to Fayetteville, Tenn., children have lost their lives to angry, upset gun-toting classmates. For example in Springfield, Ore., a 15-year old walked into his high school cafeteria and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle, the shootings left two students dead and dozens more hospitalized. After determining the identity of the shooter, police found the student's parents slain in their home, apparently by their son.
Most of the victims were targeted randomly. The suspects were adolescent, alienated and armed. But experts warn that parallels between the shootings are more complicated (Bowles). The suspected shooters may be linked not so much by circumstances as a common mentality. "It would be one thing if these kids had happened to be carrying weapons to school and opened fire during a fight," says criminologist Gary Goldman, author of the book Books and Bullets: Violence in the Public Schools. "But these attacks were planned. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. These boys had a chance to think things over. And calmly, coolly, they decided to take care of matters with pistols and rifles."
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