Mass School Shootings: A Case Study

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High School Shooting in Houston, Texas, and Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal walked into Health High School and shot and killed five students (Kalischuk, 2005). Twenty-year-old Eric Houston walked into his alma mater, Lindhurst High, killed three people, and then proceeded to hold 80 students hostage before ultimately surrendering to law enforcement. Finally, on April 20, 1999 two of the most famous school age shooters Eric Harrison and Dylan Klebold killed 13 and wounded 21 others in the Columbine High School shooting. Harrison and Klebold were victims of vicious bullying and were marginalized by peers (Kalish & Kimmel, 2010). Columbine marked the era of fear and terror in schools due to school shootings. The horror at Columbine brought a large amount of media attention to the previously unacknowledged topic of mass school shootings (Frymer, 2009). Some argued these over-televised shootings encouraged future mass shooters to perpetrate violence, as school shooters were now seen as notorious with widespread popularity and …show more content…
Mental health care became a trending headline, with various interest groups lobbying for services for individuals with mental health needs. The media began to portray those with serious mental illnesses may be future agents of school shootings (McGinty et al., 2014). In Virginia, mental health laws were challenged as well as statewide gun laws. In 2008, the bill H.R. 2640 was one of the most profound gun control laws passed by the federal government that prohibited mentally ill individuals from purchasing guns (NICS, 2007). In addition, the Educational Rights and Privacy Act was passed to address issues of privacy surrounding education records to address the shortcomings of the Virginia Tech Massacre. School shootings continued through the next seven years, with shootings occurring more frequently than ever