American Mayhem: School Shootings

Heim, David, The Christian Century

When did teenagers start gunning down their classmates and teachers? Over the past two years, nine different schools have become scenes of murder. Twenty-one people have been killed and 46 injured at the hands of high school or middle school students. Adolescence has always been a time when alienation, uncertainty, aggression and aimlessness mix in volatile ways. Acts of teenage nihilism are not new. But at some point aggression started being acted out not with words or fists but semiautomatic weapons. And the target now may well be not one person but a cafeteria full of fellow students.

"We've transitioned from single-victim shootings to multiple shootings--indiscriminate shootings of large numbers of people who had little or nothing to do with the events that led to the problem," noted Ronald Stephens of the National School Safety Center in California. "There's more firepower, more victims, and a greater sense of callousness," said Stephens, who spoke to …

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Publication information: Article title: American Mayhem: School Shootings. Contributors: Heim, David - Author. Magazine title: The Christian Century. Volume: 115. Issue: 17 Publication date: June 3, 1998. Page number: 563+. © 2009 The Christian Century Foundation. COPYRIGHT 1998 Gale Group.

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