School Shooting Research Paper

Words: 521
Pages: 3

“I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” The sound of gunfire sent schoolchildren scrambling, rifle shots felling their intended marks. Children, who moments before had been eagerly awaiting the start of class, became victims of Brenda Spencer’s intention of murder that winter day in 1979 (Durham). Her callous words, uttered when questioned by a reporter, mark the nation’s first high-profile school shooting, and the beginning of these modern-day tragedies. Two died and nine others wounded that day at Grover Cleveland Elementary school in San Diego, CA. It would be another twenty years before the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado ushered in the fear of school shootings like none before. Depending on the storyteller, school shootings are either the “new normal” or extremely rare. With every school shooting, debate and vitriol widen the gap between two sides. Caught in the middle are the victims, with …show more content…
The devastation of a school shooting reaches further than just those killed or injured. Lifelong effects emerge that alter the rest of their lives. Some say schools are safer than in the past, but safety is not merely the number of casualties in a shooting. Furthermore, treating these tragedies as an insignificant problem discounts the survivors’ stories. Although school shootings are extremely rare, dismissing them by declaring schools safer than ever neglects to acknowledge the prevalence of violence in schools, ignores academic consequences, and diminishes victims’ trauma.
Violence in school, apart from shootings, is a widespread problem affecting thousands of children annually, both physically and mentally. The National Center for Education reports over