What is behind School Violence in America?

This essay discusses the factors behind increasing school violence in America.

Increasing school violence is a cause of major concern in American schools. Parents are now more insecure about sending their children to a place where they are supposed to be safe. The school is the place for producing civilized and educated human beings rather than criminals and offenders. It is sad but it is indeed true that school violence happens in America and very little is being done collectively to counter them and make them a safe place for seeking education. Surprisingly those involved in school violence are the students of the school. In most of the cases related to school violence, the culprits have been none other but the students. Astonishingly students as young as 15 years old have been involved in the mass massacre of their fellow students. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss a very brutal school violence incident that occurred in 2012 and what is actually behind these incidents. Why are young students tempted to kill their own schoolmates?

Sandy Hook Elementary School Incident

In December 2012, Adam Lanza the student of Sandy Hook drove to the school with a Glock pistol and other weapons and shot dead 26 people including members of the teaching faculty. Before heading to school he shot dead his mother Nancy Lanza. He shot himself after killing teachers and students. When investigations took place later it was revealed that Adam was a passionate player of violent video games. Most of the games he played involved severe violence.  He enjoyed playing games like Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and High School Shooting. He kept pictures of mutilated corpses in his basement room at his house. According to one of his teachers, Adam loved to write about violence and drew pictures containing scenes related to violence that according to her could not be shared with others. He suffered from Asperger’s syndrome and he was a loner most of his life. His parents never took his behavior seriously. In fact, they brought him destructive weapons on his birthday.

Adam had been mentally ill and his parents did not take his behavior seriously and never sought medical treatment. Had they took it seriously and took appropriate precautions the violent incident could have been averted. In this case, it is parent’s fault because they took his condition for granted. According to some studies, school violence also stems from playing or being exposed to a violent material at a young age. Adam Lanza was too young when he was exposed to such types of games. The violent events in the game made him believe that it was not bad to kill other people. Those games shaped his views about violence and he took them normally.

Some other cases indicate that apart from violent video games school bullying is also a major factor behind school violence. The tragedy at Columbine High School is a true example of bullying in which two students had been the victims. Years of bullying behavior turned them to take revenge on their classmates and they ended up committing violence and eventually taking their own life.

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