SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS


larryp hosted a contest "Invalid Item" , the first round of which required the contestants to write a poem about the phenomenon of school shootings that has become uncomfortably common in USA during last few years. The last three years have seen significant rise in such incidents, some examples of which are:

2005 - Red Lake High School - Minnesota - 10 killed
2006 - Amish country school - Pennsylvania - 6 killed
2008 - Virginia Tech University - Virginia - 33 killed
2008 - Northern Illinois University - Illinois - 6 killed.

I wrote a sonnet {item:1470590 ] on this theme. My thesis was that the root cause of the school shooting phenomenon is a sense of frustration in the young minds living a purposeless life in a materialistic world where basic needs are assured by a social welfare program and where moral values don’t count much. Such thesis can only be hinted at in a sonnet. It can only be explained by way of a footnote. In this instant, the footnote threatened to be longer than the sonnet. Hence, I decided to reduce it to a line, simply referring the reader to this article.


WHY DO STUDENTS SHOOT?

It is anomalous that when they should be shooting ignorance, students are busy shooting colleagues and teachers. Why is this phenomenon confined mostly to American society? What is the cause? What is the remedy? Let us try to find some answers.

WHY DO SCHOOL SHOOTINGS OCCUR MAINLY IN THE USA?

It is crucial to attempt to answer this question, because the answer would lead to the next. It is a fact that barring some stray incident in other countries, shootings have occurred only in the American schools and colleges. Why? What are the distinguishing features of the American society? Some are listed below:

A. USA has a gun culture—USA is a country where people are used to keep guns and are emotionally attached to them. [I think Americans are quite attached to their cars and guns and can’t live without them, just as they can’t live without women and, don’t hesitate to change one or more of the three whenever a sleeker model is in sight]. This attachment to guns is as much an article of faith with the people as with the producers, the gun lobby. After all, guns, along with porn, pharma, and drugs, maybe also tobacco, are among the top industries in USA. So, people are glad to buy guns and manufacturers are glad to sell them. Quite a symbiosis. In the bargain develops a sense of violence in the society. After all, nobody in his senses can expect guns to be associated with charity!

Can adolescents in the society then be immune to a streak of gun-related violence?

B. USA has money—After all, guns cost money and a hungry man would buy bread before he buys bullets. But there are no hungry men in USA. By hungry, I mean those who are starving. There should be no need to authenticate this statement, yet here are the data for those who prefer them. More than 800 million people in the world are malnourished. 777 million of them are from the developing world.-- http://www.starvation.net/
For the sake of record, just 120 starvation deaths occurred in USA as per 2004 data, reported by
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_lac_of_foo-mortality-lack-of-food
based upon data from World Health Organisation Statistical Information System

On the contrary, among Western countries, the prevalence of obesity is highest in USA as per the data of the Obesity Society, http://www.asso.org.au/home/obesityinfo/stats/worldwide/prevalence

According to American Obesity Association, 64.5 percent of U.S. adults, age 20 years and older, are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese at present-- http://obesity1.tempdomainname.com/subs/fastfacts/obesity_US.shtml


C. USA has social security, a scheme against unemployment and poverty. Probably there are situations where some people may decide it is no use working when they can fill their tummy without working. This is likely to lead to a bend of mind where students have not enough reason to be interested in serious studies. An empty mind, we all know, is a devil’s workshops. The devil, of course, loves guns.


D. USA is a country where the majority of couples live together outside wedlock. As per the findings of the American Community Survey, 2006, as released by the US Census Bureau, 49.7 percent, or 55.2 million, of the nation's 111.1 million households in 2005 were made up of married couples — with and without children — just shy of a majority and down from more than 52 percent five years earlier. However, the proportion among adults younger than 25 has been in a minority since the 1970’s. Ref: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003305384_married15.html

Divorce rate in USA is among the highest in the world, being seventh highest as shown below, in terms of percentages of marriage that end in divorce—
Sweden, 54.9%; Belarus, 52.9%; Finland, 51.2%; Luxembourg, 47.4%; Estonia, 46.7%; Australia, 46%; United States, 45.8%, (compared to 1.1% for India), as per the divorce magazine--http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml
Those who are married break up within years. The number of years a marriage lasts in USA is not high, compared to many other countries. Most divorces in USA occur within first 10 years of marriage. The median duration of first marriages that ened in divorce in USA was 7.9 years, as per 1996 data. On the other hand the mean duration of marriages that ended in divorce in Canada in 1998 was 13.7 years as per the The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families, http://books.google.co.in/books?id=jFPuOuJ-4rkC&pg=PA310&lpg=PA310&dq=duration+o...
The result of the above two situations is that a large proportion of children live in broken homes or broken home like conditions. Can we expect such children to live reasonable stress-free lives? This stress, predictably, would be conducive to school shootings.

E. USA is a country that has probably caused more deaths outside USA than any other country outside that country. It has bombed many countries and has even dropped two atomic bombs, which no other country in the world has dared to do so far. What lesson will the children of such a country learn? That it is OK to kill others.

WHAT IS THE REMEDY?

There can’t be a cut and dry remedy. It is for the US society to find the cause of its social malady and the cure for the same. However, whatever be the cause and the cure, one thing is certain. The access to guns and its easy availability and sale must be curbed. In a country where the police is so efficient, there is no reason why individuals should need guns at all to protect themselves. In fact, more guns don’t mean more protection. They mean more violence. It is such a simple axiomatic truth that it does not need any elaborate explanation or proof.

Before I end, I must mention two things:

1. Soon after Columbine High School massacre happened, Charlton Heston, who was the President of the NRA - National Rifle Association, refused to postpone his gun rally despite wide-spread public appeal.

2. Currently, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin’s popularity ratings are, to a fair extent, attributable to her lifetime membership of the NRA and strong pro-gun ideologies.
So much so that political scenarios, elections and agendas in USA seem to be centered around Pro Gun v. anti gun control!


NOTE—The initial version was the same, minus references, which were added because a reviewer commented that my views are probably stereotyped. The references have been added to lend objectivity.



M C Gupta
5 September 2008