Talk:School shooting/Archive 1

University of Washington shootings
I notice that there is no log of the University of Washington shootings April 2, 2007; is this because it was determined to be Workplace Violence (domestic violence committed in workplace)?

Recent Events
10/09/2006: I just documented the incident that happened in Joplin, Missouri. Sakamura

04/16/07: A young adult male used two 9 mm. handguns to kill at least 22 persons and injure an additional 28 persons before killing himself on Monday, April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA.

"In teaching on violence at the university level for the past decade, I am struck by the fact that there is no simple or fail-safe "profile" which can effectively identify or screen out individuals who may be at risk for perpetrating such crimes--at least not among adults or young adults. People who offer up such "profiles" often do so for the sake of financial gain as highly paid consultants to schools and colleges, yet there is little  clinical evidence that this leads to prediction or prevention of such violence.  The one thing that almost all such mass murderers have in common is that (a) they are young white males with access to high-powered weapons designed for use by police or the military, and (b) they usually intend to commit suicide after they commit  mass homicide."

[Above remarks by David A. Buehler, Ph.D., who has taught "Philosophy of Violence" at Providence College in Rhode Island since 1996.] 71.233.48.234 18:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey! Someone has just released a v-tech computer game, mimicking the storyline of the events. This genre is not listed on the wiki defintion page. It is all over youtube if you want to see it. This might be relevant, if songs, videos, tv shows are??

2nd ammendment
"In the United States, the power to own a gun is widely seen as a constitutional right" actually it IS a constitutional right, because it's in the constitution. This makes it seem like some people actually dispute that the 2nd ammendment exists...


 * I think you're overreacting. And remember, at wikipedia we're supposed to assume good faith. Could it be worded better? Perhaps. But it looks like the writer was just trying to cover all the bases. 69.215.155.137 12:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point, smells like bias from the author.

Kent State Shootings
I removed Kent State from the list. It was a tragedy, sure, but it was an instance of rioting students vs. National Guardsmen. There was no hostake taking or desire for bloodlust on the part of the shooters as it's clear that either is the case in any school massacre.Equinox137 17:34, 15 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if it should be removed completely. It could be noted as "possibly considered a school massacre."--Daveswagon 17:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It was students, teachers and staff getting killed on campus from gunfire. Who fired isn't truly revelent in the context it is a massacre at a school. Hence "school massacre".


 * However, Kent State, Jackson State, and Orangeburg completely do not fit with the next section about profiling the school shooters. More than just "who fired" is the circumstances - the Kent State students were not sitting in class at the time, and the shooters probably didn't have random violence in mind.  It was the unfortunate result of anti-riot escalation.  The title of the page is no longer "massacre" so I think those should be removed from the list. backstop

Gun Control
In both Dunblane and Erfurt, the attacker was an adult. It's only in the USA that the attackers are children. This is due to the wide availability of guns in the USA and the irresponsibility of the US media which rewards psychopaths and serial killers, triggering waves of copy-cat crimes.


 * This is an article on school massacres, not gun control. Please stick to the topic and sign your posts on talk pages. MagnoliaSouth 03:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * In Erfurt, the attacker was a recently-expelled former student. At 18, he hadn't yet finished the equivalent of German high school.  (Because Germany has a "13th grade", so to speak, students don't finish secondary schooling until age 19.)  Additionally, my general sense of German culture is that an 18-year-old is still considered to be young (note emphasis) adult, if not still a teen-ager.  He is, after all, still one year shy of his high-school diploma!  So, I think the Erfurt shooting can be considered to be a shooting performed by a "child" in the sense you mean it, Ark (which I read as "students killing other students or teachers").  Pgdudda


 * But he wasn't considered a child by his gun club, nor whatever authorities hand out gun licenses. Also, he was repeating his last year so he was 19. In his own mind, he was probably an adult.


 * There was one a few years back up here in Canada, or at least an attempt at one. Saying "only in the USA" is far too dogmatic, and your explanation for why it only happens in the USA is unsupported at best. Besides, the article doesn't say that all attackers are children, just that normally the perpetrators are students. Bryan Derksen


 * Well, the one in Canada was in Alberta, which is rather more a gunny place than, say, Ottawa.


 * Plus, the Taber, Alberta massacre was a replica of the Columbine massacre. Canada gets American mass media, and suffers the consequences.


 * student versus child


 * Which is why I didn't change the article right then and there.


 * And the reason it happens in the USA is well-supported, though the article I read on it, condemning the media, was obviously not widely reported in the media. But since I read that several years ago, I don't know where to look for it.


 * This argument is pointless. The articles talk about school shootings, I.E. shootings that take place at a school.  It doesn't matter whether it was perpetrated by adults or children.  If this was the case, Ecole Polytechnique should also be removed.  If this were an article about child perpetrators of school shootings, then I'd agree.  Also, stop being an idiot, just because you hear it reported by the American media doesn't mean this only occurs in the US.  I guess you've enver heard of school shootings and stabbings daily, all over the world.  Heck, even this article mentions the shooting death in Argentina back in September.  Leave the Yanks alone!

Let's not get too excited here people. The reason these things gain attention is not because they're common, it's because they're incredibly rare. --Robert Merkel

That's right. The everyday killing of thousands of children by car drivers, well those are just common killings. The smaller number of firearms homicides ....

Something doesn't get reported just because it's "rare". It gets reported because it's horrific. Especially if there are established interests against it being reported. Like say, the NRA. I don't understand your point; which is probably why I don't have a point either. -- Ark


 * What I was trying to imply was simply that these things are so rare that coming to any conclusions about their nature and causes is difficult because they're simply isn't enough data. --Robert Merkel

Which is nonsense since it rests on the assumption that school massacres are not simple extensions from other social phenomena like school killings. What reason do you have to suppose there is a discontinuity in the motivations between school massacres and mere killings?
 * That may or may not be the case. The fact is that getting murdered at school is *extremely* rare, and getting killed in a massacre like this is even more so, particularly as we can name most of the instances of it individually.  Their rarity needs to be made clear - taking a few tragic, yet extremely isolated incidents as a conclusion that kids today as a whole are screwed up is irrational hysteria --Robert Merkel
 * Kids have always been screwed up. And adults even more so. Yet school massacres are a recent phenomenon. Perhaps kids are more screwed up today because of some factor like the mass media (not a possibility to be casually dismissed). Perhaps they just have more access to guns. But obviously, something's different in the equation.
 * Whatever the explanation may be, I find your dismissal of any and all proposed theories (even before seeing them!) to be odious. Here we have an important social phenomenon and you'd seek to silence everyone about it by calling them "hysterical"? -- Ark

One analysis of Erfurt

And I wish wars were excluded from the list. And especially current wars. (I'm reasonably sure I can find a reference to IDF forces bombing Palestinian schools, killing more than 5 people in the process. So let's close this particular can of worms while we still can.) -- Ark


 * Actually, I can't recall any cases in which the IDF has bombed a Palestinian school, much less killed anyone inside one. I find it interesting that you describe the Maalot masacre as a belonging to a "can of worms" - do you consider deliberately taking over a school and slaughtering pupils inside it an ethical gray area? --Uriyan

im trying to seed a commonalizing here of these issues under atrocities, though this word has a lot of color in it and mass killing might be more encompassing... Sv

Later I will try to find info on the shooting in Goddard Kansas. While maybe not a masacre.

7-year-old killer in SA
6 or 7 years ago there was a (male) first-grader in South Africa who killed a (female) 6-year-old classmate, saying, "I don't like you." Can't remember names, places, etc., but it was a school shooting (though not a massacre, but school shooting redirects here), and quite remarkable for the age of the shooter. --Taejo | Talk 11:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Shooting in School in my county
I don't know if you heard the news, but last January, a teenager bought a fake gun (I think it was a pellet) to Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Florida. Mistaken for a real gun, the school evacuated the students. However, in the bathroom, the boy was fataily shot was shot by the SWAT. He died in Sunday at a hospital and his organs were donated. More information can be found here:


 * I don't think I would say this was a school massacre. It was a mistake and only one death resulted in that mistake. MagnoliaSouth 03:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It should be mentioned in Attempted Murder and Exposed Plots, and is notable due to the "perpetrator" death, if you could call him that. You are talking about Chris Penley, right?

Massacre vs. Another Word
What do we use as a definition of "massacre"? I vote for 5 or more deaths since that's the standard for a serial killer (or so the movies claim).


 * Yes, what makes the difference between a "school massacre" and a "school killing"? According to my dictionary, a masscare is a brutal or cruel murder/killing. The qualification brutal/cruel is rather subjective, and therefore maybe not suitable for use in an encyclopedia - unless a specific incident is commonly called that way. If we take Columbine, f.e., Columbine Shooting appears to be used as frequently as Columbine Massacre. Anyway, it should be clear from the article if there is any distinction, and if so, why. jheijmans, Friday, June 28, 2002


 * According to wiktionary, a massacre is "The killing of a considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the usages of civilized people;" It is very subjective as you say, but at least it points to more than one and this article lists a number of incidents that resulted in only one death. Clearly some should not be listed. Do you think a RFC is in order? MagnoliaSouth 03:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I hope you don't mind, but I moved this question to its own heading. It was under Gun Control, which isn't quite the right place. :) The standard for serial killers vary. Some states say only more than one murder. Five is really a high number when it comes to school killings. Take the instance of the student who only killed four, but injured twenty-five. There is no question that it was, indeed, a massacre, but I have to agree with you on another point. There are many listed in this article that clearly are not school massacres. Some are deaths from a typical school fight between only two people and where one pulled a knife on the other, and some are directed at only one person resulting in only one death. To me a massacre is where there is more than only one victim. MagnoliaSouth 03:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

School Shooting is more NPOV. It's also what is most commonly used in the media. I don't thing I have ever seen massacre used. A school shooting could leave none dead, the would be killer could be imcompetent. A massacre necessitates multiple deaths, Not just a few or none. stargate70

Canton Highschool Coach Shooting
I'm thinking of deleting this as it's a minor news story, and can in no way be considered 'notable'.TheOtherFonz 11:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC) Ok it's been deleted- the main article is proposed for deletion anyway.TheOtherFonz 13:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

There should be a separate page for mass shootings
There is a difference in single one-on-one events and mass shootings. Some of the mass events have been tied to computer use and video game playing.

The problem is not the content of the games but a little known 'conflict of physiology' related to the vision startle reflex.

Sudden violence appears around the world as Culture Bound Syndromes. Amok, Malaysia, iich'aa among the Navajo, and Going Postal in the United States. It was first noted as Cabin Fever among mountain men, fur trappers, in the 1830's. They preferred to over-winter alone in small cabins rather than risk that their cabin-mate would go berserk and try to kill them.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Culture_Bound_Syndromes.htm

A definite cause was discovered in the 1960's.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/modern_cubical.htm

The Redlake school shooter left a journal entry describing what he did to create exposure to Subliminal Distraction.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Red_Lake_School_Shooting.htm

There have been mental breaks and violence on scientific expeditions and on Russian space missions, Soyuz 21. One Russian killed another with a hatchet in an argument over a chess game. There have been fist fights over chess games on Russian space stations. http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity.htm

L K Tucker 68.223.107.250 19:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * A Russian killed another with a hatchet while on a space mission? Reference? I *think* you mean "once in history somebody was killed over a chess game argument" which isn't too suprising: if Hollywood is to be believed cowboys were shooting each other over card games every half hour in the Wild West... but I'd be interested to hear if somebody was killed while in space with an axe... --82.133.79.7 14:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

The hatchet incident referenced happened in an Antarctic station. The brief mention is from an article in a Smithsonian magazine. When fist fights over chess games began to happen in space Russia banned chess on space missions. Neither NASA nor the Russian space agency is aware of the problem with the physiology of sight capable of causing mental breaks. The US Air Force is attempting to solve the problem of pilot suicides while the Navy investigates Screaming Seaman, a panic attack aboard Submarines. Both problems involve this phenomenon. L K Tucker 74.224.31.227 00:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

==Graphic== In the graphic associated with this page one of the locations noted is "Philadelphia" but the arrow points to someplace near the center of the state. The page from where the graphic comes mentions a shooting outside a Philadelphia school but as a citizen of that city who knows the area where it occured I can tell you that this was not a isolated or uncommon occurance. As this page is about notable mass shootings in schools I think the use of this graphic should be reevaluated and a more informative one found.

Not that my opinion matters as Wikipedia is open to everyone, but I was the one who uploaded that image onto wikipedia and I can see your point in removing it, I will try to find a more accurate map. 60.229.14.71 13:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

"the Secret Service urges adults to ask about behavior: "What has this child said? Does he have grievances? What do his friends know? Does he have access to weapons? Is he depressed or despondent?"[1]"

If this part of the article is factually accurate, I give eternal credit to the FBI or CIA or whatever for not warning parents about music or dress ense or any other classically percevied stereotypes of school shooters.

Cleanup
This article jumps around in tense (especially the accounts of the killings) and is generally hard to read. I have tagged it for editing, as well as editing some of the mistakes myself. Splendour 15:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I proofread this article a little and made a few minor punctuation edits. I think this could use some major substantive editing in addition to copy editing. As you say, it's hard to read and seems unfocused. It may help to re-organize it. - Marphilly August 6, 2006

This page seems to glorify these crimes
The paragraphs 'Notable School Shooters' and 'Notable School Msssacres' seem to this.

I agree that the wording is incorrect.I already forgot 11:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so sure we should say that the victims "Deserved what they got"

In most cases they did though, through systematic bullying and exclusion. School shooters tend to target individuals and groups that have victimized them. This only applies to shootings where the shooter/s is/are a student/s, of course.

Alleged
A suggestion in case there are any editors here who monitor or try to maintain this particular article, I think a number of events should be referred to as "alleged attacks". The entire section : "Foiled or exposed plots" is a good candidate. - BalthCat 05:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

moved from List of massacres

 * May 19,1998,Thorton High School Massacre, Springfield/Eugene,Lane County Oregon. Gun Found by Admistrator and returned to 14 year old Kip Kipling.Kills both parents, shoots 24 seniors,many had deforming or wounding injuries to head.

Please process accordingly. `'mikka (t) 20:46, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, could it be more incorrect? Besides, Kip Kinkel's rampage wasn't a massacre, it was just a tragic shooting. Lach Graham 12:06, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What is 'infamous'?
The trend at the moment seems to be that any new school massacre is immediately added to the 'infamous' list. Older ones, and particularly but not exclusively ones outside North America get added to the 'Other' lists. Do we actually have some idea of what distinguishes an 'infamous' massacre? Thayvian 22:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with you here. Probably should be a minimum limit, like >10 casualities or something similiar. Ddahlberg 00:48, 30 September 2006 (UTC)


 * We need to come to a conclusion before we randomly add every school shooting to "Infamous".. what SHOULD be done is that that list SHOULDN'T be there. --Ddahlberg 22:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm going to define "Infamous" as > 5 deaths and/or a stand off lasting more than 3 hours. Feel free to discuss (though no one has been doing that). --Ddahlberg 14:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * A more accurate description might be "Massacres with many casualties" or something like that. Given that we have the category, I'm not sure that the "Other" list should be there. Thayvian 21:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that could be a more appropriate definition, though we may have to define "many" unfortunately as it doesn't clear up much of the "vagueness" that was brought about by this in the first place. --Ddahlberg 15:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Judging from the article, I would say either 10 or 15 deaths would be a good cut-off point. Thayvian 08:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Recent spike
In the last 3 weeks, there have been 4 school shootings in North America. Has anyone else noticed this? -- Jay  (Reply)  20:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

There was one in Indiana, but I didn't see it here, was that one that you were mentioning? It was an old Amish one room school house, and it wasn't anybody from the school, as the recent one in Colorado, if anybody knows more about it they should put it up here. Straightxedger 00:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Other primary and elementary school killings
I changed the name of the school in Greenwood, SC to Oakland Elementary. It is not Greenwood Elementary in Greenwood, BC as was linked. Ppalmer21 21:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)ppalmer21

Biased listing?
I can't help notice that the listings in this article contained mostly on events that took place in english-speaking countries, with few from foreign countries. Obviously english-speakers aren't likely to be reading other language newspapers or that the media may fail to mention it or simply that such phenomenon happens mostly in the aformentioned countries. In any case, this may be a good venue for expanding this article about non-english school shootings and maybe for foreign language articles too.--Janarius 01:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Very scary recently
Apparently the Amish shooting was the 24th one this year in the US...that's..really scary for me. Especially with the people in my school. Didn't really know where to discuss this, but..just had to get it off of my chest.


 * I understand that these things are disturbing, but the odds of them affecting you is so miniscule that it's simply not worth worrying about.


 * There are, apparently, roughly 50 million Americans in school. Let's assume that these shootings continue at the current rate, and there's about 32 school shootings.  So let's take a rough guess and say that there will be 50 deaths this year from school shootings.


 * Your chances of dying in a school shooting, per year, are then, quite literally, one in a million.


 * These events get attention not because they're common, but because they are incredibly rare. You're more than 100 times more likely to die in a car accident, abd you are tens of thousands of times more likely to live a long life and die of a heart attack in your nineties.


 * Spending your time worrying about an event that is extremely unlikely to happen would seem to me to be a complete waste of time. Hug your parents, pat your dog, go outside and enjoy the sunshine, if you have a girl/boyfriend give them a kiss, and appreciate the gift of life.  --Robert Merkel 02:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that there is a low order of probability of death by shooting in schools. However, the families of survivors are undeniably distressed and the news media centers not just upon the actual event/s but also many follow-up stories. T.E. Goodwin 06:02, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Ugh
I can't even get past the intro in this one. Not only is it very US-centric, but makes stereotypes and generalizations about acts of violence. Take, for example:

''In the United States, everyday school violence, such as beatings and stabbings, especially of the gang-related sort, is more common in working-class, inner-city schools. However, student-perpetrated school massacres most often occur in overwhelmingly white, middle class non-urban areas (i.e. small towns and suburbs) where they receive the most media attention due to their severity in a brief period of time''

I'm gonna do a little research and get this cleaned up. Any ideas are, of course, welcome. -Maverick 04:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the particular example should be either removed or cited. If you're in a position to do that, unfortunately, I'm not. peace,Bassman444 21:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with this observation, particularly since I attended a "working-class, inner-city" school. There seems to be a widely-held perception that city schools serving poor neighborhoods are complete disaster areas or warzones. This is misleading. Schools that serve city neighborhoods where violence is more prevalent are frequently very vigilent about security for that reason. Violence that actually takes place within the schools themselves is actually much rarer than people think. I think the statement can be left in but should be reworded since there does seem to be a difference between urban and suburban school violence. When it does occur, urban school violence can usually be linked to concrete factors such as poverty, gangs, etc. However, the type of school massacre that frequently garners national headlines does tend to be almost exclusively a suburban phenomenon: a rampage attack claiming multiple, usually random, victims that seems directed at the school itself as a social institution. -Marphilly 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I reworded the first sentence to make it sound less generalized and biased. It now reads: "In the United States, one-on-one public school violence, such as beatings and stabbings, or violence related to gang activity, is more common in some densely populated, impoverished sections of cities." Not great, but it was bugging me. -Marphilly 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Need for a comprehensive list on this page?
Do we need a comprehensive list of every school massacre the editors can come up with on this page? Those tables have never been particularly readable. Now that the categories are in place, can't we reduce the article to listing the "infamous" massacres (see discussion above)? Thayvian 21:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Are school massacres very Rare?
Like terrorist attacks, school massacres very rare yet traumatic. For an individual student, the odds of dying in such an attack are utterly miniscule. Despite this, they receive extensive media coverage and often result in nationwide changes of school discipline and security policies.

I've never contributed to a wiki before so didn't want to go ahead and edit the quoted paragraph, but in light of the recent attacks in the US i feel the statement that draws a parallel between the frequency of terrorist attacks and school massacres is inaccurate and poor. The fact that there have been 24 school shootings this year in the US is staggering.

What is wrong with these people? The fact that this kind of crime is on the up is without doubt and I believe that it walks hand-in-hand with the world, on the whole, going to pot. This is humanities nervous breakdown. Unfortunately were on a one-way fare, but for the sake of the children and the love of God, ban the bloody guns.

Forgive my insensitivity at this time, my heart is with all the victims and their families, but i am very angry and sad.


 * Roughly 16,700 murders and "nonnegligent homicides" occurred in the United States last year (which is down significantly from the 24,000-odd in the 1990s . Compared to the overall murder rate (which is itself quite rare, though much more common than in  rest of the Western world), the number of people murdered in school is, thankfully, negligibly small.  Children are much, much safer in school than they are at home (they are much more likely to be murdered at home by a family member than they are in school).

I did not contend the fact that the number of deaths caused by shootings in schools is low and that it is extremely unlikley that an individual will be harmed in such an event. Just the fact that you compared the frequencey of these attacks to the frequency of terrorist attacks which is clearly inaccurate.


 * I made the edit, and I stand by it. Both terrorism and school shootings have provoked reactions completely disproportionate to the actual risk they pose because of their sensational nature. --Robert Merkel 23:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * And if you want a really staggering fact, try this, . Doctors and nurses' mistakes result in at least 44,000 premature deaths annually.   That's an old study, but more recent ones indicate that the rate hasn't changed much.  Even allowing for the fact that many of those, to be blunt, were in very elderly people who probably would have died soon after anyway, even if 1% of those deaths involved children that's a much higher risk than school massacres.  But why aren't we hounding the medical profession to clean up their act, and politicians to act to make/help them do so?  --Robert Merkel 23:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The UK has only one such incident in history: the dunblane massacre and Thomas Hamilton legally owned the weapons though membership of a pistol club (since the event all .22 cartridge handguns were outlawed) and shotguns are controlled stringently. Excluding air rifles, children in the UK do not generally have access to guns. If pistols were lying around family homes i feel the number of such events would be a lot greater.

Targeting Females
Nowhere in the article is there a mention that a common theme of several of the shootings has been targeting females exclusively. I find this omission very curious. Has such a section existed and subsequently been removed or was there never such a section. In either case, I feel one is definitely needed. Comments?

topher67 20:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Birchland Park Middle School
A student at BPMS made what he called a death list with the names of people he didn't like on MySpace.com. He was caught immediately and is currently under suspension until further notice. It is  not known if he meant to kill anyone, but for the time being, shouldn't we put it under "Foiled or Exposed Plots"?

Reason for deleting Gill?
As of 03:16, 12 October, Kimveer Gill's name was removed from the list "infamous shooters" within this article, but the remover did not add an edit summary. Anyone know why this would have been removed? He did not kill that many students, but neither did some others on the list, and his case has been especially prominent, partly due to the sensationalistic nature of his web postings. Lawikitejana 07:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

October 4, 2006, Evans, Georgia incident?
From the article:
 * On October 4, 2006 an unknown student at Evans High School, Evans, Georgia posted a threat in the boys bathroom wall promising blood shed on October 4th 2006. It was quoted to say " The Blood of The Innocent Will Run at Evans on October 4th ." The school was placed on lockdown but no attacks were commenced.

Is this relevant? I'm sure there have been plenty of empty threats posted in middle school or high school bathrooms that never materialized. Jeff Silvers 17:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Statistics
I'd like to see some statistics with some reliable sources about how much of a per capita increase or decrease we have had in school shootings over the years.-TheRealdeal

Stabbing?
I have hered from one of my teachers that in Woodrow Wilson High School, during the prom, that another student stabbed another student over a girl killing him, can anyone give a year to confirm this? By the way I live in the Woodrow Wilson Highschool district.BobafettH23 02:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Bridgewater
I added the Bridgewater incident to foiled plots. As a resident of the Bridgewater area, I figured something that made as much news as this should be refered to. Crusader4762 01:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Thurston High School Shooting not notable?
Is the Thurston High School Shooting not considered notable, even though its perpetrator was Kip Kinkel? Titanium Dragon 07:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

At least 7 out of 12 school shooters are on PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS.
See it on TV news if you don't believe it: http://www.strijewski.com/school-shootout/

Are you suggesting that be added to the article? WizardofOskemen 21:35, 25 November 2006 (UTC)WizardofOskemen

Foiled plot
My friend called a bomb threat and brought a gun to his middle school, and he was expelled from school. Should this be added to the list of foiled plots? It was on the local news channel. WereWolf 21:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Massacre means mass killing
Why does the opening of the article say only one death can be a massacre?
 * One death by homicide is a murder. The definition of massacre means mass murder or the killing of a group of individuals at one time in one place either by an individual or another group.T.E. Goodwin 06:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Columbine
There are  three pictures dealing with Columbine - shouldn't other photos be included? --MosheA 17:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup
All unreferenced cases will be deleted, per Verifiability. `'mikkanarxi 19:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Bob Bechtel; Robert Bechtel; Swarthmore
< http://swarthmore.edu/news/inthenews/05/05.02.24.htm >:


 * Associated Press
 * HEADLINE: House approves bill against school bullying


 * February 21, 2005, Monday, BC cycle


 * SECTION: State and Regional


 * LENGTH: 203 words


 * DATELINE: PHOENIX


 * BODY:


 * The state House voted overwhelmingly Monday to require school districts to prohibit students from harassing, intimidating and bullying other pupils. The House's 56-3 vote sent the bill (HB2368) to the Senate. Under the bill, districts would have to adopt practices that would apply to students while on school property and buses and at school-sponsored activities.




 * The House K-12 Education Committee endorsed the Arizona bill on Jan. 19 after hearing an endorsement of it from a University of Arizona professor who previously disclosed that he fatally shot a classmate in response to bullying in 1955 at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. "This is a universal problem," Professor Robert P. Bechtel told the committee. "Unless there is some intervention, it will go on." …

HEADLINE: Alum's Plan to Attend Reunion Summons Dark Memories at Swarthmore
 * The Chronicle of Higher Education


 * February 25, 2005, Friday


 * SECTION: MONEY & MANAGEMENT; Pg. 25


 * LENGTH: 250 words


 * BYLINE: PAUL FAIN


 * BODY:


 * The most notorious member of the Swarthmore College Class of 1955 says he plans to attend its 50th reunion this June. On a January night in 1955, Robert B. Bechtel, a member of the Swarthmore class that also includes former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, shot and killed Holmes Strozier, a sophomore.


 * A professor of environmental psychology at the University of Arizona, he has said he was a victim of bullying in college. Mr. Bechtel recently testified to Arizona legislators about his violent past in order to support antibullying initiatives in Arizona schools.


 * Swarthmore has objected to Mr. Bechtel's "misleading portrayal of the events of 1955," saying in a statement that he "was not subjected to physical violence or intimidation" while in college, and that Mr. Bechtel's subsequently diagnosed mental illness was among the factors that had influenced his actions. …

(LANCASTER, PA.)
 * SUNDAY NEWS


 * HEADLINE

I, hereby, recommend that this article would be commenced.

Thank You.

&#91;&#91; hopiakuta &#124; &#91;&#91; &#91;&#91;%c2%a1]] &#91;&#91;%c2%bf]] &#91;&#91; %7e%7e%7e%7e ]] -]] 07:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Russian School Shooting/Terrorism
Oughtn't the events that occurred in Russia in, I think it was, 2003 be included in this list? Kids died in droves. It was, yes, a terrorist act, but still. I am willing to add it, but I figured I should get some feedback first. Wilybadger 05:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The Beslan school hostage crisis is there, in the 'infamous' list. Carcharoth 03:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Maybe you could add how Chechnya is paying very dearly for Beslan. Nostrovia!

SovBloc 19:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)SovBloc


 * It shouldn't be added. The Beslan School Massacre was an act of terrorism and war. This list should be only for students or teachers that have gone crazy.

-G

Tidying up and updates
Please see these edits for the latest series of updates. I've added a few new entries, removed duplicate entries, and tidied up a bit. Carcharoth 03:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Category reorganisation nomination
Please see this nomination and suggest ideas for how you would like the category system to handle these sort of articles. Carcharoth 03:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

HUGE list
The massive lists of school shootings seems to be drowning this article. Would it be better to move the lists to one or more separate articles? After all, it doesn't list all terrorist incidents on the terrorism page. Rather, it talks generally about terrorism, talks broadly about the interaction between terrorism and other aspects of politics and society and mentions the major incidents.

I think moving the list of school shootings to a separate page is defintely called for. Let me know.

ManicParroT 00:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I propose a vote Ishmael Rufus 17:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Title
Sensationalist, or what? The common understanding of the word massacre involves more than "at least one death". How about moving it to school shooting incidents? Guy (Help!) 12:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Non-fatal
Should the non-fatal shootings section really be on this page? Or should we rename the page to reflect the content? NotMuchToSay 23:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Bosse Comitatus
Why there is zero mention of Sebastian Bosse? His shooting spree in Germany was way bigger than Columbine!

Tables need references
Please start adding references to each and every entry in these huge tables, per Verifiability. Otherwise they will be severely trimmed. `'mikka 23:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Map
I think it would be good to include a US (and/or world) map with red dots signifying the locations where shootings occurred. David Bergan 20:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

How to
How would I go about citing myself as a first hand source? Anybody know? SovBloc 07:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)SovBloc
 * You don't. Original research is not what an encyclopedia is for. bobanny 17:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thai school attack
I am not sure how I should list this - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070318/ap_on_re_as/thailand_southern_violence

Should this be primary? Secondary? WhisperToMe 06:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

WTF
What happened to the list?? Its....gone. EuroTeck 23:36, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, and on another note, I think the list, if we get it back, should definitely include Sebastian Bosse. EuroTeck 23:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

if teachers weren't so hard on students stuff like this wouldn't happen its just not the kids who get them too. When good hard working kids get bad grades they snap.

Numbering the victims
If you look at the Virginia Tech Massacre at two different places, you would notice that one had 32 victims and one 33. I would imagine that one included the shooter, and one did not. We need to standardize this by mentioning whether or not the count includes the shooter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.159.19 (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone should fix it. -122.52.26.169 (talk) 09:24, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, the number for the Austin Tower shooting has two different numbers (18 and then 15) + it seems kind of repetitive to say the number of the victims twice in two different tables. Finally, I agree on standardizing if the shooter is included or not. I vote - standardize it to not including the shooter in any of the counts and specifically stating if there are more than one in any case.Neutralityisimportant (talk) 10:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an article: Kaine, T. M. (2007) Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech April 16, 2007: Report of the review panel. Office of the Governor of Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TempContent/techPanelReport.cfm that states that there were 33 deaths total, including himself. the shooter killed two people in the dorm rooms, killed 30 in the classroom building, then himself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.144.212.163 (talk) 07:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Another one?
They just announced on my local (Boston MA area) news station that there was another shooting in TN. Anyone have more details/hear about this? 24.147.52.110 (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is a link to an article about it: http://cbs3.com/topstories/memphis.school.shooting.2.650988.html Novadestin (talk) 04:52, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

This one needs to be added to the the elementary school list in 1989, Tallahassee Florida http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-03/news/mn-723_1_fatal-shooting —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.109.133.145 (talk) 16:50, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a reason Hebrew University cafateria bomb isn't included?
I just noticed that while the Ma'alot massacre and Avivim school bus massacre acts of terrorism in Israel were included here, the Hebrew University cafeteria bombing in 2002 (no article) isn't included. (I thought at first it might be a question of the definition of massacre, but other bombings are also included in the list here.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jnothman (talk • contribs) 23:51, 16 April 2007 (UTC).
 * I would agree with this being added - is there a Wikipedia article to link to?  Tvoz | talk 00:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure this is supposed to be about school shootings, not killings in schools in general. The first two you mentioned appeared to be school shootings. However the Hebrew University one sounds more like a school bombing to me Nil Einne 20:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Until the article was moved yesterday, the two were included under "School massacres". That name is more POV, but also is not as limiting. What is inherently different between bombing of school students and shooting them? A more relevant distinction would be to remove all three of these attacks which were political unlike the numerous US examples. jnothman talk 23:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The Avivim school bus attack and Ma'alot massacre were terror attacks committed by Palestinian terrorist who had no personal connection whatsoever to the Israeli victims or schools. The mention of these attacks is entirely out of place (cf.: "Mass killings at schools like the Beslan school hostage crisis, are usually described as acts of terrorism"). Same goes for said Hebrew University bombing. As an Israeli citizen, I know of no events qualifying as "school shootings" that have occurred in Israel.
 * I hereby remove this mention from the article.
 * I am inserting it here for the benefit of anyone who my for some reason want to reinsert them.


 * Avivim school bus attacks - Avivim, Israel; May 8, 1970 [sic., there was a single attack according to the article]
 * Ma'alot massacre - Ma'alot, Israel; May 15, 1974


 * Sincerely, Jonathan Shafer 03:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC).


 * Ma'alot was re-added again. And the Bangkok schooting was equally out of place. Added both as examples to the explanation of what doesn't belong on this list. __Rontombontom (talk) 18:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I too think that terrorism/guerilla action should be removed from here, especially Beslan. These cases are unrelated to the phenomenon which is described by the term "school shooting". The venue being a school has little relevance to the cause of such incidents or the motivation of the perpetrators. 84.2.221.224 (talk) 00:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The epidemic section should be deleted
It is unreferenced and original research. It is unknown as to what extent media coverage promotes copycats. Sad mouse 00:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * removed. Feel free to remove again if it is reinserted: WP:V states you may remove any unsourced unverifiable information, the burden of proof is on the including party to source their claims. &rArr;    SWAT Jester    On Belay!  03:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

How on earth can this article exist...
... without a link to gun politics and a discussion of the underlying causes of school killings? If that isn't biased, what is? Kosebamse 10:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

How on earth can this article exist...
... without mention of the possible cause being the violent side-effects of the psychiatric drugs that many of the shooters were on during, or just prior to, the shootings? See this mini documentary on the subject Psychiatry's Prescription for Violence. See also, from WP's article on SSRIs:

''Similarly to other antidepressants, SSRIs can cause suicidality in children.[36][37][38] Analyses of the risks of SSRIs by governing bodies in the United States and United Kingdom have produced warnings about suicidality and aggression when the medications are used with children and adolescents. A 2004 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis of clinical trials on children with major depressive disorder found statistically significant increases of the risks of "possible suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior" by about 80%, and of agitation and hostility by about 130%.[36]'' Johnalexwood (talk) 23:21, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Article names
Who decided on the "massacre" heading usually they're referred to as shootings in th media aren't they? Aaron Bowen 13:55, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * They are called school shootings; it was probably some emo who felt it needed to bleed more. I don't know how to move it back, but there was no vote to move it, so it should be moved back to school shooting, then discussed. Titanium Dragon 14:36, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Someone yet again moved the page; I moved it back. Titanium Dragon 19:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Please date the notable massacres
In that section only about half of the school massacres are given exact dates; the others just have years. Either give date them all or don't... having it half-and-half is trying. --Marshmello 19:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Infamous school shooters
Is this section in any particular order? It doesn't seem to be chronological or alphabetical. --MosheA 20:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think its clear that Cho should be added; its not clear he's infamous yet. Titanium Dragon 21:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * By now he is. &rArr;    SWAT Jester    On Belay!  03:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree; media sensationalism doesn't make you famous. People remember Klebold and Harris, but I doubt many people could name more than three shooters from the 1990s - Klebold, Harris, and maybe one local shooter (I remember Kip Kinkel who shot up Thurston High School). Titanium Dragon 05:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Notable school shootings/infamous school shooters
Should these sections even exist? List of school shootings was split off, and it seems like they're rather redundant with the list. Really, there've only been a few "major" ones - the clocktower sniper of Texas in 1966 and Columbine. The rest have been forgotten, such as the disaster of 1927, or overshadowed, such as the school shooting in Springfield. It doesn't seem like there's any clear way of differentiating. Titanium Dragon 21:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"Note: Other countries have more school shooting per capita than the US[citation needed], however, crime statistics are official secrets[citation needed] in some countries and de facto secret in many others, and not centrally available in still others."

If there is no citation for this in the next few weeks, I propose it gets deleted because apparently there is no way of knowing, and it seems that the information is irrelevant and just trying to make an excuse for the high number of known US school shootings. Besides, the overuse of "de facto" is annoying (repetitious) and should be changed if the entire phrase is not deleted altogether.Neutralityisimportant (talk) 07:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Poll
This article has been called school massacre for years until someone moved it yesterday.

Vote for School massacre

 * School massacre - this is the original and correct name for the article. EnviroGranny 22:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * School massacre - at least until it is clear that the article contains only shootings. At the moment, it does not. Yes, the Bath School massacre included shootings, but it also featured bombings, etc. First a clear reason for distinction would need to be made. jnothman talk 23:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Vote for School shooting

 * 1) Sorry, didn't realize there was a poll and moved it boldly. I can self revert upon request, or anyone can just move it back without prejudice pending the poll outcome. --Uncle Ed 15:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) School Shooting, though see below. Titanium Dragon 19:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Massacre is an emotional and subjective description reserved for large scale tragedies and media hacks. --ElKevbo 20:39, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) School shooting (2nd word lower case). There are vastly more school shootings involving a small number of victims than those with so many victims as to warrant the term "massacre." I.e., shooting-related school massacres are a subset of school shootings, which is a more inclusive term (albeit it doesn't include other, non-shooting related school violence resulting in deaths). --Yksin 07:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Addendum. Besides, the Bath School disaster falls neatly within Category:School killings in the United States, of which Category:School shootings in the US perpetrated by students is a subcategory. Nothing lost, really. --Yksin 07:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Comments
A quick googling returns 759,000 hits for “school shooting” and a meager 170,000 hits for “school massacre”. School massacre gives 2,330,000 hits, school shooting 7,990,000 hits. Shooting isn’t perfectly accurate (everyone’s favorite 1927 bombing is excluded) but school shooting is a massively more popular term; the media uses it a lot more often. It may be called a school massacre overseas, but I have to say I’ve never heard it called that in the US; everyone calls them school shootings. Also, it is hard to call killing a single student a massacre, as this article seems wont to do - even the most generous definitions of massacre don't refer to a single homicide as a massacre. School killings is a much more precise term, but it is a tenth as popular as the others as a phrase, though killings and school are often used together. Titanium Dragon 22:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I really don't have an opinion as far as massacre or shooting but in the mean time having the Bath school disaster (which did not involve any shooting) listed in the intro seems bizarre. The perpetrator in the Bath disaster bludgeoned his wife to death and then killed all the other people and himself with explosives. I'm going to remove it (and paste it here for easy retrieval) until a final title is decided on. Natalie 15:09, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The sentence removed :"In the Bath School disaster, the perpetrator was a member of the school board." If the title is changed back to school massacre I can put it back in. Natalie 15:10, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see any good reason to remove it; despite not being an actual shooting, it would pretty much be lumped in with the rest because it was quite similar. He just didn't use a gun. Titanium Dragon 19:31, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If a gun wasn't used then it wasn't a shooting. Hence it doesn't belong in the (currently-named) "School shooting" article.  --ElKevbo 20:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Words mean things. We can't go around changing definitions so we can more neatly categorize something. Natalie 21:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think either term fits. School Massacre implies a massacre and School Shooting implies a shooting. Yet several accounts of school violence involve stabbings, bombings, less then 2 people dying or being hurt, no one being hurt, suicides, etc etc etc. Yet School Violence is way to broad a topic. I think that the popularity of a term should not decided the title as the meaning itself does not change. We need to find something that actually works regardless of what is popular or trendy. So I would vote that neither be used and something more like School Attacks be used.Novadestin (talk) 04:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Motivation
The works of Alice Miller and Gavin de Becker might shed some light on motivation and prediction. --Uncle Ed 15:15, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Suicide school shootings?
Would anybody know the number of school shooting ending via the shooter killing himself? I only know three (Red Lake, Colombine & Virginia). I just think that its like something the person probaly does in the end for one reason or another. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Angelofdeath275 (talk • contribs) 01:24, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't really see why this is important but I can tell you its more then three. I have a list of all school attacks with detailed info on it but I really don't have time to go and figure this out sorry. Novadestin (talk) 04:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Southwood Middle School tragedy
From what I can tell, the Southwood Middle School tragedy isn't actually a shooting but a stabbing, even though it's in the "well known shootings" list. I'm tempted to change it, but I would like to know if there's any reason to keep it there on this page. 12.179.243.131 07:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well-known shooters: Brenda Ann Spencer?
I added Brenda Ann Spencer to the list of well-known shooters - I figure this is fitting enough, considering a song was actually written about the school shooting in Cleveland, in which she took place. Any comments? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lasse Havelund (talk • contribs) 17:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

Should we put the well known shooter list in alphabetical order?
I think we should put them in alphabetical order because the list now seems to suggest that the Columbine shooters is the most well known of all the shooters. I am going to change it, but at the same time, feel free to discuss as it is merely my thought. Thanks. Chris 01:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merge in of 2006 School shooting outbreak

 * Support - there is enough of an overlap that putting these articles together would allow a more complete overview of the subject. TerriersFan 18:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - 2006 School shooting outbreak is just an analysis of a coincidence using original research. User101010 19:13, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

*Do not Support - 2006 School shooting outbreak is a list of school shootings from the year 2006 as this article is an article that describes the reasons behind school shootings. User:rgoodermote 18:30, June 8 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Actually, it isn't just that since a major part of this article consists of lists. I agree that it could be a good idea to limit the article to the concepts/reasons but in that case we should break out the lists, combine with the 2006 page, and create a list/examples page. TerriersFan 23:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Changed-Support Upon reading the above comment I do agree upon a merge Rgoodermote 8:56 June 11, 2007 (UTC)

Note that there is now Articles for deletion/2006 school shooting outbreak which, at the time of writing, looks like it's going to be deleted. If there are any useful refs there it would be good to get them before it's too late... --TreeKittens 03:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Without prejudice they are:
 * http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_275115123.html
 * http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2006/yir/timeline/
 * http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/whats-behind-school-shootings.html

Best regards --TreeKittens 03:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Who is Prof. Jack Candle?
I've searched on every single search page that I could think of, and the only pages that came up were the wiki and pages that directly quoted wiki. I'm feeling HIGHLY doubtful that there is such a man who wrote about the psyche of the school shooter, and I'm tempted to remove the text that says so.
 * That's mighty suspicious. I've removed the statement for the time being. It can be readded when someone can find a cite for it. Natalie 08:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * FWIW Jack Candle is the name that was used as a phony reference in another article. At that time, we managed to track the name down to a defunct link, and a novelist (we had reason to believe probably the same person) who publishes on the web exclusively.Aaaronsmith (talk) 05:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden
Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, the pre-teen gunmen in the Jonesboro massacre, should have their articles merged in with the massacre page itself. Their pages are unnecessary to have and don't hold the enough amount of notability to have one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeatherEngine (talk • contribs) 22:25, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Out of date reference
I think the CNN reference in the introduction paragraph is out of date. It should be removed and a replacement sourced if possible. The article (published in 1998) is used to support a claim that "school shootings [..]are infrequent", yet this wiki article goes on to list scores of shootings, most of which have occured since the article was published over the past ten years. I think things have changed since the article was published. 86.135.220.148 (talk) 18:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This article sucked
I have completely re-written and almost perfected this article...it was in such a mess. Hard to believe it was like this but ah-well hope I can perfect it more... LOTRrules (talk) 13:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Good Article review
Per the quick-fail criteria, any GA candidate that has cleanup banners (such as the one in External links) should be failed immediately and does not require an in-depth review. I will say that even without the banner, I would be strongly inclined to fail the article in its present state. The vast majority of its content is comprised of lists of school shootings, perpetrators and related media. There is by comparison almost no real encyclopedic content on the phenomenon, and what there is lacks the necessary verification, for example: the Impact section is woefully short and has not one in-line citation to a reliable source. Many of the references are inadequate in their format, more than just a bare url is required to assess the reliability of sources. It is also telling that the most-used source in the article is the Internet Movie Database. Please address the above concerns before choosing to renominate the article. If you feel this review was in error, you may seek a reassessment. Thank you for your work so far, Van Tucky  02:54, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Gee, thanks for the advice I'll get to work quickly but you must admit the article is a lot better than before LOTRrules (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Time bias
It would appear that there is a time bias. The number of occurences in the incidents seems to have increased, this may be a misrepresentation of the facts being that not every school shooting in 1966 or 1976 is listed but 2008 events are listed because it is current-recent events they are fresher in our memories. The article makes it look like there is some dramatic increase in school related violence, while if investigated to see all the facts, it is more likely to show that there has been no change in history.--Recoverypsychology (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
 * If you can find suitable support for this I think it would be put into the article. Find your soucres then cite them clearly. LOTRrules (talk) 00:54, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I can't document this, but years ago I had a friend who did heavy research for a university thesis. He claimed (cocktail party conversation) that if you actually go back and read the local newspaper issues for the last 100 years, many "incidents" simply never made it to the "big city" papers. His (unscientific count) opinion was that PER CAPITA there were just about the same number of murders, suicides, going postal, school shootings/knifings or other acts of violence, etc. But, these statistics have never been accumulated in a modern data base and it takes a LOT of work to figure it out.Aaaronsmith (talk) 03:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * My own experience seems to support this claim. If you really start searching for major shooting incidents (though not necessarily school shootings) you find a great lot in the 80s and 70s. The number seems to become smaller, the more you go back, but then the information situation also deriorates quite rapidly, at least on the internet. (Lord Gøn (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC))
 * "(Grant) Duwe found that the prevalence of mass murders (...) tends to mirror that of homicide generally. The increase in mass killings during the 1960s was accompanied by a doubling in the overall murder rate after the relatively peaceful 1940s and ’50s. In fact, Duwe found that mass murder was just as common during the 1920s and early 1930s as it is today. The difference is that then, mass murderers tended to be failed farmers who killed their families (...)." Looky here (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC))

Major edit
Just to tell you I think the Impact section is just too long and irrelavent. I will cut it down but I will have the spare biuts of information used as referances in the near future. It was one of the reasons the article failed a good article nomination. LOTRrules (talk) 00:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Right I'll make a separate page on my userpage as a place for storing these tables (which are irrelavent) - please contact me if you can't find them. LOTRrules (talk) 01:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Final note: I have stored them - anyone who wants them go to User:LOTRrules/Referances - but be warned the use of these tables will result in GA and/or FA status automatic failure so please use these only for referance not by making up huge tables as WP is against extensive list/table formats in just one article... LOTRrules (talk) 01:23, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Causes
Most school shootings are started by bullying,fighting,break up etc. This is a big deal in schools. Teachers need to pay attention to what is going on in the class more then they do.

Columbine High School massacre Ashleybla (talk) 20:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)ashleybla


 * It's psychological, it's just in the USA. LOTRrules (talk) 17:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

According to John Lott, some countries have more school shootings than the US and a lot of countries have more violence.Aaaronsmith (talk) 03:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * John Lott is talking through his ####, and anyone who believes the above statement is a fool. --172.159.8.243 (talk) 06:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't prove Lott right or wrong, but I've studied statistics and read some of his stuff and, statistically, his stuff holds togeter a lot better thn most.24.10.111.154 (talk) 23:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Expand
I believe this article needs to include more material from around the world. I has much United States material mut not much else. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 07:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorting columns
Nice touch with the little icons to sort table columns - does not work with dates though: alphabetical sort by month? Duh. DoomProofWiki (talk) 11:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

School shootings and America
Has there been any research or information as to why this is so common in America as opposed to other countries around the world. (Assuming it's more than just the 24 hour media circus) 219.131.222.37 (talk) 09:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Surprisingly, it is not more common in the US. With 300 million people, the US is the third largest nation on earth.  The raw numbers will always look large.  The US also has a free press which by definition includes the electronic media (many countries that claim a free press, exclude the electronic media and it is tightly controlled) and every little event becomes world wide fodder.  The US is the only country where individual states accumulate crime statistics, etc. without "federal" oversight.  This means that compared to most countries (and I do not mean just third world) the US Department of Justices crime statistics are pretty reliable.Aaaronsmith (talk) 03:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In closed, secretive countries, such as China and North Korea, the government controls the media to prevent people finding out about crime that occurrs in their countries, including spree shootings. Therefore it is difficult to compare the frequency of occurrence in different parts of the world. Paul Smith 132 (talk) 14:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Extensive lists within the article
I propose to outsource the lists in the article to a seperate list-page, as I think they are way too long, pretty distractive and do not only contain notable incidents, but nearly every little school massacre that occured over time. (Lord Gøn (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC))
 * Ok, what is the point of having a list of notable shootings (and "notable" is very far stretched here, as almost every little incident is mentioned) and then mentioning some of them again in the media-famous cases-section? Shouldn't the list be cut down to just a few really notable cases with a reference to the List of school-related attacks?(Lord Gøn (talk) 14:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC))

Wiki has at least two articles: School shootings and School attacks. Both are heavily biased.

I suggest someone who wants to keep these articles merge them together and do a REALLY good job of organizing them.

Otherwise, let's put them both up for AfD.Aaaronsmith (talk) 19:25, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Stamps, Arkansas
In the '90s, this place had a school shooting. You may find this in the local police reports. Allegedly, two juveniles pulled a fire alarm, and when the school emptied out in response, they opened fire on the other people. Will Google this matter. Stand by....65.173.104.138 (talk) 19:45, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm back, but, due to the nature of these two sites, can someone examine them before placement? I do NOT to violate anything at all. Thanks. These are: http://www.thepatriotexchange.com/gunfree.htm and http://www.forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?p=647215 These are about the shootings that happened in Stamps, Arkansas. 65.173.104.138 (talk) 19:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The latter link has to be accessed "off wikipedia", due to a malfunction. 65.173.104.138 (talk) 20:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Two students wounded in Arkansas shooting. I'd say it is not very notable. And it is already included here. (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC))

One (of many, many, many) we have missed
Missed U.C.L.A. about 40 years ago.Aaaronsmith (talk) 18:36, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Suicide of gunman
I wonder is there been a school shooting where the killer didn't make suicide at the end? --Artman40 (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure. Barry Loukaitis, Evan Ramsey, Luke Woodham, Michael Carneal, Mitchell Johnson, Andrew Golden, Andrew Wurst, Kip Kinkel, and Charles Andrew Williams are all still alive. I have noticed that, at least in cases of school violence, the worse the carnage the less likely the shooter is to come out alive. I suppose there are reasons for that. PSWG1920 (talk) 02:32, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1961 Kungälv school shooter Ove Conry Andersson did eventually commit suicide, but several years later, after completing his prison sentence and as far as is known, the suicide was completely unrelated to the shooting.

Heraklion shooting
Citing http://graduate.union.rpi.edu/newsletter/september00/september00.htm:
 * In 1990, a similar incident took place at the University of Crete in Greece. On November 27, 1990, a former physics graduate student there fatally shot two physics professors Vasilis Xanthopoulos and Stephanos Pnevmatikos.

The student in question had been expelled, and had live in the mountains for a period of time before the killings. - I think this shooting qualifies to be in this article, but lack sufficiet sources.--Noe (talk) 20:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

"Notable shootings" vs. "Media-famous cases"
What's the difference? &mdash;Politizer talk / contribs 14:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Real bad, politically correct math
Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems the Western world and especially the United States is over represented on the list by a factor of about 14,000 percent.

If this is just because more tightly controlled societies suppress news of their warts, that should be included in the main article to avoid skewing the article by "omission".Aaaronsmith (talk) 22:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Cited in published court opinion
The July 11, 2007 version of this article was cited in Boim v. Fulton County School District, 494 F.3d 978, 983. (11th Cir. 2008). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balonkey (talk • contribs) 03:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Lawyers are not statisticians, historians, current event experts. If they cited THIS article, the guy citing it should be disbarred and his opponent should be disbarred for not catching the dissemblance.Aaaronsmith (talk) 02:54, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that the court should not have cited this article. My guess is that the judge had no idea what a wiki was.  Anyhow, court opinions are written by judges, not lawyers, FYI.  Balonkey (talk) 17:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a comment, not trying to start a thread: By law most judges ARE lawyers.Aaaronsmith (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Suicide
I wonder are there any documented cases of school shootings which haven't ended with a suicide? --Artman40 (talk) 12:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, many. See my reply above. PSWG1920 (talk) 16:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Some shootings listed don't fit the definition, I think
I mean, Mitchell High School was, most probably, not a randomly targeted shooting spree but some personally motivated violence on school site. The same goes for Delaware State University. Is every shooting at school a school shooting? 195.208.186.79 (talk) 05:48, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Media-famous cases
Do we really need this section in this form? An all-time high score for which purpose other than to honour the killers forever? -- Avant-garde a clue - hexa Chord 2  12:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I can only agree! This list is really like a high score table, it even implies media-fame! In my humble opinion it should be removed completely. All the information is available in the other tables. Also the ability to sort the other tables by number of victims should be removed. -- Joerg Heinicke, 11:47, 22 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.132.131.195 (talk)

Pre-shooting behavior
The definition section states that shooters often have a history of uncommon inappropriate and extreme behavior. What kind of things they do is not stated, can anyone give examples? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 03:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Scope
I`ve noticed a disrepancy between the definition, and the list of shootings. The definition which says rules out the shootings at Kent State, Jackson State and the Beslan school hostage crisis. Yet these appears to be on the list of shootings. Should they really be there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lunda2222 (talk • contribs) 01:05, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Historical revisionism in scope and context are indicators of N-NPOV bias
I was dismayed to see that another wiki editor deleted the reference to the Bath, Michigan attack in the summary table. The death toll here was huge, yet it was deleted. Why? Do I smell a whiff of politics? The fact of the matter is that bombers and arsonists have killed more students at schools than gunmen. The recent arson attacks on school dormitories in Uganda (19 dead) and Kenya (58 dead) vastly eclipse the death toll of shooting attacks. For the sake of NPOV, full context, and appropriate scope, these incidents should also be mentioned. Trasel (talk) 15:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * To follow up, here are a couple of references:

Uganda: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559839/Arson-attack-primary-school-dormitory-kills-19-children-Uganda.html

Kenya: http://www.irishnews.com/searchlog.asp?reason=denied_empty&script_name=/pageacc.asp&path_info=/pageacc.asp&tser1=ser&par=ben&sid=286243

Perhaps Africa should be added to the existing table of international incidents. Trasel (talk) 18:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, as the article is about school shootings I assume that arsons and bombings are not subject of it. Sure, the term creates a bias towards incidents occurring in the western world, especially the USA, as guns are a lot less used e.g. in attacks on Asian schools, but then it's a term originating from the US, so this shouldn't be that much of a problem, nor be of any surprise. And then we have List of school related attacks, where all the bombings, arsons and knifings can have their place. So we should stick to the shootings here, I'd say. (Lord Gøn (talk) 20:54, 6 May 2009 (UTC))

University of Utah
The University of Utah is not required to allow guns because of the State Supreme Court ruling. It is a matter of state law (custodians of public property, such as the state universities, may not ban weapons on their own authority), the ruling is only relevant because the president of the university and local police refused to comply with the law in question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.213.84.48 (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

What a horrible term!
That means, too harmless. It sounds as harmless as a "photo shoot" (in some languages (French, German) suffixed by an -ing) but it obviously isn't. I'd really love to know who coined that silly term for this kind of massacre with innocent people who "just" want to educate themselves. -andy 92.229.126.162 (talk) 13:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Innacuracy in "Notable School Shootings"
I think there may be an error in the list of "Notable School Shootings": "Hamilton High School shooting" is listed in Scottdale Georgia on Feb 2, 1996. I cannot find any other record of this on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the net except those that use Wikipedia as their source. Given the enormous amount of coverage that school shootings receive, I suspect that this event never happened.

F. Goodfellow 9/30/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.196.171.141 (talk) 16:46, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

"Notable school shootings" list
This list includes incidents from Israel and other places in which the perpetrators have been from a military or paramilitary / militia force, these do not belong here, as a acts of war, "terrorism" if one is biased. From anyway you look at it a "school shooting" is one done by usually a pupil, teacher or somebody else that have ties to the place where the killings occur, and the motive is one of criminal or criminal insanity of a lone gunman or a tag team of two (like columbine) but not a action by a organized, trained and "legimate" or "know" military / rebel force. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.156.206.20 (talk) 02:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

POV edits
I have just restored the edits deleted that provide an opposing view on Gun control. This came about because of a request for comment on the preventing School violence page about censorship. The proper way to address this isn't more censorship but less.

This RfC is here if anyone else is interested. Talk:Preventing_school_violence Zacherystaylor (talk) 17:27, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. That paragraph is completely unsourced.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 19:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Gun "expert"
There are no reliable sources for that paragraph; the first reference is an op-ed piece, which wouldn't be reliable even if he were an expert, and the latter two are references to his opinions (but not expertise) on an unrelated gun carrying issue. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Please add Midland Dow school shooting
The list of school shootings in the U.S. does not include the Midland Dow High School shooting on March 8, 2007, in which a teenager critically injured his girlfriend before committing suicide in the school's parking lot.

http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=5099484

link to archived story on the incident from local affiliate WJRT TV

98.224.194.37 (talk) 06:22, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

The Ohio State University shooting
Should this be included in notables? It didn't involve any students or faculty, happened in the middle of the night, in a building to which students do not have access, and was a targeted shooting. The circumstance that it happened on a university grounds is really not significant in this case. It was more of a workplace violence incident than a school shooting. If we were to include an exhaustive list of all the gunshots ever fired on college campuses, the list would be too long for Wikipedian standards. As it is, the list should probably be cleaned up.

65.24.114.92 (talk) 08:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Cross-referenced opinion not fact!
"School shootings receive extensive media coverage and are infrequent" this statement is presented as fact despite being only opinion despite being referenced to an (opinion-based) editorial. It is also seemingly completely contradictory to the rest of the content of the article which contains a long list of notable school shootings including 11 in the US in 2010 alone, this is not infrequent by any standard. It is disrespectful to suggest that these are freak events with disproportionate media coverage particularly as 12 people lost their lives in the last year alone.Missbad92 (talk) 18:25, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Does the 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting belong on this page?
Does the August 11th 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting in Granada Hills, CA belong on this page? Obviously a community center serves many purposes, but education and hosting classes are among them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Jewish_Community_Center_shooting —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.76.27 (talk) 01:43, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

"2011 Utoya massacre"?
Could the recent (yesterday) massacre at a camp in Utoya, Norway, classify as a "school shooting"? Or would it be something else? 97.96.65.123 (talk) 02:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Number of Victims Clarification
Looking at the list of shootings in the United States, the list uses the somewhat vague word victims. Does this mean people killed or all casualties? The other lists both use the more specific term "Death Toll," which, while admittedly grislier, is more specific. Capcom1116 (talk) 05:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It means peopled killed. For example, in the Columbine massacre, 15 people were killed, but around 24 more were injured (the article only says 13 because the other two were the shooters). I agree, the term "victims" should be changed to "death toll". 97.96.65.123 (talk) 02:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Altona Manitoba shooting
(173.33.41.45 (talk) 02:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)) I looked at the reference to the Altona, Manitoba shoting "Schoolmaster kills pupils, The New York Times (October 9, 1902)", and it refers to an event in Droyssig, Bohemia not Canada. This should be fixed.

Validity of Number of School Shootings 1990's - Present
The number of homicides on school grounds is way off when compared to http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/school_violence08-09.html, which is not even a comprehensive list of school deaths. For example, according to the National School Safety Center, only 1 school homicide occurred during 2008 - 2009. While the link above lists 8 school shootings that resulted in death. Please change if you have a better source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zxcvasdfqwer888 (talk • contribs) 21:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

This is going to take a while to clean up. jjozoko!
 * Thanks for the addition, but I think the phrasing "# Homicides and # deaths resulting..." is misleading/confusing because people might read it as homicides separate from deaths.Zxcvasdfqwer888 (talk) 04:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Unclear statistic
"According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health[34] "15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier."

15% of what? 4% of what? 213.249.135.36 (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Jacksonville, FL
There was a shooting in Jacksonville, FL today. It should be added to the list. http://www.news4jax.com/news/2-dead-in-shooting-at-Episcopal-High-School/-/475880/9234044/-/w57d6h/-/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Variable rush (talk • contribs) 20:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect Sorting in Table
In Section 4, the tables with the notable shootings in the United States and in Canada, when sorting by number of victims is incorrect. E.g. 32 for Virginia Tech is sorted among those shootings with only 3 victims. 217.91.48.202 (talk) 13:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Brentwood, New York
Nothing involving a shooting by a former teacher's aide in Brentwood, New York in 1983? What gives? DanTD (talk) 14:26, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Map
Does anybody here know how to produce a map of world-wide school-shootings like this one? --Pawyilee (talk) 03:00, 16 December 2012 (UTC) 

Geschwister Scholl School attack Emsdetten, Germany November 20 	2006
translation needed http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoklauf_von_Emsdetten --Über-Blick (talk) 18:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll add an expansion tag to Emsdetten school shooting. Altered Walter (talk) 09:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Profiling section does not contain information on relationship to use of SSRI antidepressants
SSRI antidepressants are known to produce aggression, mania and other violent behavior. We know that a high percentage of perpetrators of school shootings are documented to have been using SSRI antidepressants at the time of thier crimes and courts of law have ruled that SSRI antidepressants are a contributing factor to violent crime. Why is there not a section on the possible link to SSRI use and school shootings?

For example, something like this?

Possible link to antidepressant medications
Use of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants and other prescription medications has until recent years been reported by the media as information "incidental" to the stories involving mass acts of violence. The possible relationship between the use of prescription medications and acts of violence has however become a subject of intense interest to medical, education and law enforcement professionals in recent years as many mobilze to try to discover the reason for the dramatic rise in school shootings and similar acts of violence in the U.S.

Risks of violence associated to use of antidepressant medications
A 2004 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis of clinical trials on children with major depressive disorder found statistically significant increases of the risks of "possible suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior" by about 80%, and of agitation and hostility by about 130%. Antidepressants can make users obsessively violent or have suicidal compulsions, which is in marked contrast to their intended effect. This can be regarded as a paradoxical reaction. Children and adolescents are more sensitive to paradoxical reactions of self-harm and suicidal ideation while taking antidepressants. Prozac, one of the most popular SSRI antidepressants reports possible side effects including mania, transient psychosis, paranoid reaction, delusions, agitation, depersonalization syndrome and suicidal ideation

In September 2004 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required manufacturers of SSRI antidepressants to label their products with a “Black Box” warning which is the strongest warning that the FDA requires, and signifies that medical studies indicate that the drug carries a significant risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects.

Antidepressant product liability
In September 2011 a Winnipeg Manitoba judge ruled that a Winnipeg teen was driven to fatally stab another teen due to the adverse effects of the antidepressant drug Prozac, setting a precedent of liability for such cases.

Media's coverage of school shooting events sometimes effects copycat effect
American psychologists have found out that every time television stations report a school shooting event with massive coverage, copycat effects occurs (see Moral Panics Over Contemporary Children and Youth). This is an important fact showing that American news media is not more ethical than Taiwanese news media (many Taiwanese people consider American news media much better than Taiwanese ones, which is not true). However the article does not have this fact! Please add the section like "school shooting and the media" to mention this fact.--RekishiEJ (talk) 18:26, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

daycare shooting?
Would a shooting at a daycare count as a "school shooting"? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 08:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

school stabbing?
Do we have an article on where a knife is used on a stabbing spree / mass stabbing instead of a gun (school shooting) ? should cover both, and bombings as well) -- 70.24.250.103 (talk) 06:12, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

So Sad.
I feel sorry for families that had victims in the shootings :( 68.4.76.39 (talk) 23:26, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

First shooting in a german school
was on May, 25th in 1871 in Saarbruecken by Julius Becker. It is on the german Wikipedia

link: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Becker_(Amokläufer)

School system
The article does not deal with the question, why these shootings don't happen in shopping malls, cinemas or at the tube but in and only in schools and universities. It does not mention ideas of changing an oppressive education system, but crazy calls for even more weapons or less violent films/computer games. I respect that in the US, people have different political positions (for instance towards weapons) but this article is too absurd and should be edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.104.12.179 (talk) 20:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They do happen elsewhere: Howard Unruh, Hungerford massacre, Cumbria shootings, 2011 Tucson shooting. The article should mention why schools are the scene of a disproportionate number of spree shootings; I don't see any evidence for it being to do with the educational system. Paul Smith 132 (talk) 14:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The shootings do happen in mall and movies but this article is only talking about school shooting in particular.§

Video Games
I think the video game section is written unprofessionally and puts way too much weight on them as a cause of school shootings. It needs to either be rewritten or removed completely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.108.19.53 (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Thinking about putting in a hyperlink
It seems to me that partially school shootings occur as a result of school bullying. I want to add a hyperlink that connects this article with the peer victimization wikipedia article.Cadillacblues (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Also i think it would be helpful to put in a hyperlink that connects psychiatric drugs to the psychiatric medication article so that people can reference the list and affects when looking at this article and how some shooters were affected.Cadillacblues (talk) 01:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

going to work on lead section
i think the lead section is sparse and does not adequately summarize the article. I plan on adding and making some improvements to this section.Cadillacblues (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Profiling Section
There are a couple more FBI noticed shooter similarities that i want to add to the profiling section.Cadillacblues (talk) 01:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Psychiatric Drugs
I want to add to the psychiatric drugs section because it is important to note that there is not a PROVEN direct causal relationship between the shootings and these drugs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cadillacblues (talk • contribs) 01:53, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Political Impact
I am wanting to go through and clean up this section and fix some citations — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cadillacblues (talk • contribs) 02:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Violence in videogames
Moving the section "Violence in Videogames" to talk due to lack of reliable sources. The one cited source is an opinion piece with no references in it, and hence is an unreliable source.

Violence in Video Games
The young men who opened fire at Columbine and other massacres were video gamers who seemed to be acting out some dark digital fantasy. Violence in video games has been proven to lead to aggression. There are certain tests that have taken place to justify this finding. There's also research confirming that playing these games can and does trigger hostile urges and aggressive behavior. Lab experiments confirm what any gamer will tell you, that playing games like Call of Duty, Killzone 3 and Battlefield 3 stirs up the blood. Also a study at Iowa State University reported that playing Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for 15 minutes made participants unkind to their peers. Forty-seven students were found to be more aggressive across the board. This plays a significant role in the case of school shootings. However these are not proven facts as Fighting games have been known to temporarily raise aggression levels. This is not the only cause for such a violent act but it does play a part.
 * Im going through the article and fixing citations on the suject of "political impact", and on the examples of school shootings in Asia, EuropeBebeamour (talk) 20:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

the Zero tolerance law should be added in the article
I think this law is pretty amazing and impressive; its very important in the sense that it reprimand every one(all ages) for any crime no matter how minor it is. Bebeamour (talk) 23:48, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I found some more information to add on the subject of the Zero-tolerance law§ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebeamour (talk • contribs) 19:37, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

How to stop school shootings
I want to add some information i found on cnn.com about how to put an end to school shootingsBebeamour (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This information doesn't seem to be very useful. Why would we want to include a list of ideas from CNN readers/viewers?  That sounds like something we should only include if it comes from experts or is otherwise placed into a larger context. ElKevbo (talk) 22:05, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

personal statements
I found this article that only talks about the experience of one of the victims of Columbine High School Shooting i think this will be a great plus to this articleBebeamour (talk) 02:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how this adds to the reader's understanding of this topic. Can you please be more specific?  Thanks!  ElKevbo (talk) 02:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

i believe it does bring a better understanding of the experience of school shooting and what is better than a direct victim? is like visualizing the scene through somebody eyes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebeamour (talk • contribs) 10:49, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Lead
I have removed the statement "There is a lot of controversy over whether or not school shootings are a result of psychiatric drugs or bullying", and not because of any opinion on the subject itself. Firstly, this reads as if there is some kind of presumption that there could be no other causes, which is clearly not the case. Secondly, what are "psychiatric drugs"? Prescription meds for psychiatric conditions? Illegally obtained psychoactive hallucinogens? Unclear. Thirdly, it reads terribly! Please feel free to add it back, but rewritten and clarified. da nn o _ u k 02:17, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Preventing school shootings
I think there should be a separate section on different ways to prevent school shootings other than having armed classrooms. By only discussing armed classrooms as a way to prevent school shootings it almost makes Wikipedia look slightly biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Britopher87 (talk • contribs) 20:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Police response and countermeasure
In the "police response and countermeasure" section, it talks about the active shooter policy and explains what it is, but it does not say the name of the policy. The name of the policy needs to be included in the section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Britopher87 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Attempt at explanation for extremely high US figures
The article doesn't even make an attempt to try to explain why the number of US school shootings is such an enormous figure. It appears that just in the first 2 and a half months of 2014 there have been more US school shootings than in the whole of Europe in the last 100 years. Is it American culture? Is it America's crazy gun laws? Is it the portrayal of guns and violence on American TV? At least quote some studies which surely must exist to explain why there can be more shootings in 2 months in a country of 300 million people than in 100 years on a continent of 650 million people.--ЗAНИA talk talk] 11:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

One of the reasons is the US w a free press (better than England) and its state structure w mandatory/overlapping crime reporting cannot hide its dirty laundry like (most) other countries. We barely heard about the school shootings in Russia, NEVER hear about the 70,000 a year riots in China, are never told that some countries don't even acknowledge a crime until they have a conviction, you know LITTLE things that are never mentioned in polite company.Aaaronsmith (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

"Mental illness" section has NPOV problem
The entire section is a diatribe in favor of gun control, with selectively cited findings from a poorly controlled study spun to support the author's agenda. It needs completely rewritten, and if a study can be found without the poor control (controlling for both variables in the shooting itself - that is, one would require four cases, one with both mental illness and high-capacity magazines, one with only high cap magazines, one with only mental illness, and one with neither). Admittedly the very EXISTENCE of the latter case would take the wind out of the author's political sails, as they seem to be running on the assumption that high capacity magazines insert themselves into people's guns, insinuate their demonic mind-control tentacles into the owner's brain and cause them to go shoot up a school - the conclusion they advocate, certainly, is that high-capacity magazines are somehow a causative agent, which is sufficiently disconnected from reason as to be funny. In summary, if my point has been lost: The section needs rewritten without aggressive anti-gun POV; it should be easy enough to show disconnection of mental illness from school shooting behavior without assigning free moral agency to an inanimate object. If it isn't, the entire case is flawed to begin with, given it's built on anthropomorphizing guns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.61.102 (talk) 04:14, 15 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that the section has problems, but I don't think they are the above-mentioned ones. The section recently had its opening paragraph removed; while I think this was the right move, as the removed text did look like OR, and was pretty polemical, it meant that an essential portion of the argument was lost. The section as it is at time of writing does not explicitly deny the possibility of a link between mental illnesses and shootings (not even a directly causative link), so the point of the study mentioned (that people place undue emphasis on mental illness as a cause of these things) is weakened.


 * Furthermore, I believe the last sentence is a non sequitur; it does not follow from the claim that "people who have a mental illness are six times more likely to be the victim of a homicide than a person without a mental illness" that homicide is less likely to be caused by possible mental illness of the perpetrator. Put another way, say that a member of group A is ten times more likely to be the victim of a crime than a member of group B. This does not mean that a member of group A is less likely to be the perpetrator of a crime than a group B member. A link between being a victim and not being a perpetrator has not been established here.


 * Normally I would hesitate before editing such a charged article as this, but the section does need help, so I suppose I will be bold, and give it a shot.
 * Sheavsey33 (talk) 10:20, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Recent shootings
http://news.yahoo.com/two-students-shot-wounded-outside-maryland-high-school-024608300.html http://news.yahoo.com/video/maryland-school-shooting-wounds-two-120808282.html

Also a Reuters report on a shooting at at Virginia School of Health.211.225.34.159 (talk) 02:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Spain's first school shooting
http://www.worldwideweirdnews.com/2015/04/27-n36467.html http://m.thelocal.es/20150420/what-we-know-about-the-barcelona-crossbow-shooter http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/student-kills-teacher-at-spanish-school-police_1581841.html http://www.chinatopix.com/tags/joan-fuster-school http://www.thelocal.es/20150420/student-shoots-dead-teacher-in-barcelona-school newslines.org/2015-barcelona-school-shooting/events/murder/ http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/571598/Youngster-arrested-teacher-shot-dead-crossbow-Spain --Hienafant (talk) 14:14, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

US list not using the same criteria as this article
Caution should be used in adopting the US list of school shootings. It's got plenty of entries that do not qualify as school shootings by the criteria established in this article. Either the US list article should be brought in line with this article's criteria or the subset of US school shootings that fit this article's criteria should be used. TMLutas (talk) 23:26, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 5 one external links on School shooting. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150214070338/http://finlandschooleducation.com/vocational-training-is-bright-spot-amid-finland-school-education-system-malaise/ to http://finlandschooleducation.com/vocational-training-is-bright-spot-amid-finland-school-education-system-malaise/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121107204516/http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/14/qc-dawsoninvestigation.html to http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/14/qc-dawsoninvestigation.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061023204014/http://www.cbc.ca:80/canada/story/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html to http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/09/13/shots-dawson.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20131002192050/http://www.esg.uqam.ca/recherche/document/2009/04-2009.pdf to http://www.esg.uqam.ca/recherche/document/2009/04-2009.pdf
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://iansa.org/campaigns_events/Baku_30Apr09.htm

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Criteria
There doesn't seem to be any criteria on what categorises a "school" shooting. For example there are several examples resulting in no death and a couple resulting in no injuries either for example. Rötz school shooting in germany wich has 0 injuries or deaths, and investigators determined that the perpetrator didn't intend to kill anyone but was attempting suicide. Or Kanebogen Elementary School shooting. I'm hopping we can come up with a objective standard we can systematicly apply. Any input would be appreaciated.SKG1110 (talk) 10:16, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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La Roche Shooting
If only two people were killed during the shooting, why does the total say 4? Aaron Saltzer (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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Edit Proposal
Wikipedia has made it known in 2012 that this article has multiple issues. Namely, that it possibly contains original research, and that the article’s lead section does not adequately summarize key points of its contents. Moreover, while the article is quite thorough on listing all the school shooting incidents that have occurred, information from more updated and reliable academic material on the topic would serve to enhance the article’s quality. The talk page is also short, suggesting that not many people have been taking an interest. Some ideas for improvement are: getting rid of original research, improving the lead section to adequately summarize key points of its contents, and adding updated and current information from reliable sources. In addition, on the See Also section of this article, there are many articles parts of which may be very relevant to this article, such as Bullying, School Bullying, School Violence, Campus Carry in the United States, and Gun Culture. It may be helpful to review these related articles to see what is missing from the article in question. Some recent on point articles that are secondary and peer-reviewed are David Paradice, An Analysis of US School Shooting Data (1840-2015), Education, 2017; Abigail A. Baird et al, Alone and Adrift: the Association between Mass School Shooting, School Size, and Student Support, Social Science Journal, Sep 2017; and Daniel Mears et al, Columbine Revisited: Myths and Realities About the Bullying-School Shooting Connection. Nkchicago (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Hello, we are a group of students currently working through wiki education to create a school security page. Let us know if you have any ideas for contribution to that article. Raynesylvester (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Adding external link to NCTSN
Hello all! In light of my previous edit being reverted, and after discussion, I have gone ahead to add a single external link that goes to the resources page of the National Center Trauma Support Network (NCTSN). Many thanks to all for the consensus building, as per discussion here! Ongmianli (talk) 01:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Reference 19 is non-existent
I could not find the article for reference 19, this should be removed if it is just an opinion. The examiner does not have an article by that name according to my research on their website. ally (talk) 19:28, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Shooter identity
Since it is implied that the shooter is a student, perhaps it would be useful to add another column to the tables to indicate the identity of the shooter (student/staff/other). It would make it easy to differentiate between a 40-year-old dude with a flamethrower and spears busting up a school and students gone bananas. Would make sorting and browsing easier. Does it make sense? Nikolaneberemed (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s just to identify an shooter before the police and court office has released the identity. Andmos (talk) 05:17, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Profiling Additions
Hello! I will be editing this article for my Rhetoric of Data class at Beloit College. I plan to expand the profiling section with statistics from one of the studies already mentioned. I will also be adding a table I have created to display these statistics. The information I intend to add will enhance the difficulties with profiling school shooters. Please let me know if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions about my edits to this section. You can respond here or on my talk page. Thanks! Greifaq (talk) 04:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Combating Gun Violence in Schools
Within the last 15 years, student-perpetrated shootings at schools emerged as a worldwide phenomenon with 14 incidents since 1999 (Leuschner et al, 2017). School targeted shootings have been on the rise over the last several decades, in both frequency and brutality despite focused efforts by lawmakers to deter such events. As a country, the United States needs to identify trends in why school shootings take place and begun to rise and determine the most comprehensive way ahead for ending these attacks. The one thing that always takes the focus after one of these events is the debate on gun control and this never truly helps the situation or prevents future attacks. Studies that date back to the first school shooting in modern U.S. History indicate that the most comprehensive solution to stopping these acts is to reinvent our societal norms to that which promote empathy and compassion (Comprehensive Health Education Foundation, 1994). Of the last several mass school shootings it was reported in hind sight that there were obvious indicators that the perpetrator might carry out such an attack (Langman, 2012). An unfounded faith in the in the power of laws to change criminal behavior disguises the root causes of juvenile violence (Brezina & White, 2000 p1-2). In order to stop these attacks from happening the US population must first be educated on the root causes of violence in our youth and supplemental measures must be taken in order to stop attacks before they start, at least while the fundamental revamping of our societal values takes place. There is no single right answer for combating targeted school shootings. The most comprehensive approach to combatting violence in American schools is shifting focus from guns and moving toward education and healthcare while progressing toward the fundamental reworking of our societal norms.

References

Brezina, T., & Wright, J. D. (2000). Going Armed in the School Zone. Forum For Applied Research & Public Policy, 15(4), 82. Comprehensive Health Education Foundation, S. W. (1994). Preventing Violence: A Framework for Schools and Communities. Langman, P. (2012). School Shooters: The Warning Signs. Retrieved From: https://school shooters.info/sites/default/files/school_shooters_warning_signs_1.1.pdf Leuschner, V., Fiedler, N., Schultze, M., Ahlig, N., Göbel, K., Sommer, F., & ... Göbel, K. (2017). Prevention of Targeted School Violence by Responding to Students' Psychosocial Crises: The NETWASS Program. Child Development, 88(1), 68-82. doi:10.1111/cdev.1 2690

Jbarnash (talk) 23:59, 3 May 2018 (UTC) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:School_shooting&action=edit&section=new#

On media and the controversial topic
Should we add how the media are responding to an shootouts both on the proper channels and the not proper once? Andmos (talk) 05:14, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Arming teachers (cut out and moved here)
I just removed this from the article: All the quotes chosen are cherry picked to present a certain picture that is not supported by the sources. All the sources discuss the negative perspective of arming teachers, but only the positive side is presented here. It should be either both sides or neither and I think "neither" is the way to go. Carptrash (talk) 18:47, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "This is not the case for schools throughout the country which have had great success with their teachers being armed" as they followed the plan the government outlined to keep the children safe, proper training for each person who would be handling the weapon, screening to ensure individuals using the guns are willing to protect the children from a threat with the gun they are trained to use. There are some teachers who want to carry a firearm to protect their students. Kasey Hansen, a special needs teacher in Utah thinks that every teacher should carry. She says, "We are the first line of defense. Someone is going to call the cops and they are going to be informed, but how long is it going to take for them to get to the school? And in that time how many students are going to be affected by the gunman roaming the halls?" "

I just cut this out from the "Mental illness" section
because there is no insuring discussion of what mental illness has to do with that shooting. Carptrash (talk) 20:11, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
 * "For example, on April 16, 2007, a Virginia Tech (VT) student named Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed thirty-two faculty members and students on the campus and injured twenty-five more before taking his own life."

Boomtown Rats
it might be worth adding "I don't like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats to the list of cultural references, I think that it was based on a school shooting too

Peter — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.75.114.23 (talk) 17:36, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Re: Bullying
"Often, they are rejected by their peers and follow through by restoring justice in what they see as an unjust situation. Their plan for restoration many times results in violence as shown by the school shooters. 75% of school shooters had been bullied or left behind evidence of having been victims of bullying..."

I think it would be good to indicate that while the majority of school shooters were victims of bullying, the majority of bullying victims do not develop or enact violent plans of restorative justice; the section, at least tonally, seems to me to suggest otherwise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.232.85 (talk) 01:23, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

welcome
just i join this group to talk about school shooting because is the topic i chose for my essay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jsk15 (talk • contribs) 01:08, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Police Response and Countermeasures
Analysis of the Columbine school shooting and other incidents where first responders waited for backup has resulted in changed recommendations regarding what bystanders and first responders should do.

Where is the source or link to the analysis of the Columbine school school shooting?Erikay677 (talk) 03:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)