A Survey of School Violence

The violence in our schools is not surprising as we see the spirit of lawlessness breaking out across America! It is the result of the seeds godless liberals have sown for years. Every day in America, 13 children under the age of 20 are murdered, according to the Children's Defense Fund. It is evidence of what Princeton professor John J. DiIulio Jr. has suggested about a "rising tide of super-predators." Studies made in previous years predicted that by 1998, America would see a dramatic increase in crimes committed by juveniles. Well foks, we're beginning to see it!

Teenagers have lost all respect for authority - they are becoming hard-hearted, sensual and violent. And, they are documenting their own violence with cell phone cameras and posting the results on YouTube. While FBI reports indicate that violent crime has dropped 4 percent, juvenile crime has risen. "The increases in violence we're observing are among very young people and they are very dramatic," said Glenn Pierce, the director of Northeastern's Center for Applied Social Research. In 1996, nearly 93,000 juveniles were charged in violent crimes -- a number 60 percent higher than a decade ago. In 1996 alone, more than 2,000 juveniles were charged with murder.

The Washington Post concluded, "While the severity of actions range from simple cheating at school to pushing drugs, to cold-blooded murders ... the depth of the problem has reached a point where common decency can no longer be described as common. Somewhere, somehow ... the traditional value system got disconnected for a disturbing number of America's next generation."

Twenty percent of suburban high schoolers surveyed by Tulane University researchers thought it was appropriate to shoot someone "who has stolen something from you." Eight percent believed it is all right to shoot a person who had "done something to offend or insult you."

Time magazine called it a "deadly love affair," while Newsweek said it was a "virtual epidemic" sweeping our nation. They are talking about young people and guns, and this is one of the deadliest trends in America today. The Justice Department has issued reports showing that each day more than a hundred thousand children come to school with guns and knives. A University of Michigan study reports that 9 percent of eighth-graders carry a gun, knife or club to school at least once a month. In all, an estimated 270,000 guns go to school every day. U.S. News and World Report estimated that there are more than three million crimes committed in the public schools every year. That amounts to more than seventeen thousand crimes every single day. There are two thousand cases each month where teachers are assaulted or raped.

March 2009: Fifteen people were shot and killed at Albertville Technical High School in southwestern Germany by a 17-year-old boy who attended the same school.
November 2008: 15-year-old Teah Wimberly was charged in the shooting death of Amanda Collette, 15, on the campus of Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
October 2008: Four suspects, Kawin Brockton, 19, Kelsey Perry, 19, Mario Tony, 20, and Brandon Wade, 20 were charged in a shooting that took place on the University of Central Arkansas campus in Conway AR. Two students – Ryan Henderson, 18, and Chavares Block, 19 – were fatally shot. A third person, 19-year-old Martrevis Norman, a non-student visiting the campus, was shot in a leg and was treated at the nearby Conway Regional Medical Center.
August 2008: Fifteen-year-old sophomore Ryan McDonald, was shot and killed by fellow sophomore student Jamar Siler, also 15 in the school cafeteria at Central High School in the Fountain City neighborhood of Knoxville, Tennessee. The two had been in previous altercations, the details of which were not released to the general public.
February 2008: Steven Kazmierczak shot multiple people on the campus of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, United States, killing six and wounding eighteen.
February 2008: Fourteen-year-old Brandon McInerney, a student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California shot and killed fellow fifteen-year-old student, Lawrence "Larry" Fobes King.
February 2008: 17-year-old student Cornelius Cheers opened fire in the Mitchell High School cafeteria in Memphis TN, critically wounding 19-year-old student Stacey Kiser. The school was locked down for the rest of the day and the perpetrator was arrested and taken into custody.
February 2008: 23-year-old nursing student, Latina Williams, opened fire six rounds with a .357 revolver in a second-floor classroom at the Baton Rouge campus of Louisiana Technical College before turning the gun on herself and committing suicide. The two victims were Karsheika Graves and Taneshia Butler, who were both fatally shot.
October 2007: Two teachers and two students were shot at SuccessTech High School in Cleveland, Ohio before shooter, Asa Coon, committed suicide.
September 2007: Delaware State University student, Loyer Braden, shoots two fellow students, killing one.
April 2007: 33 people are dead after two separate shootings at Virginia Tech, making it the worst school shooting in US history. On April 16, 2007, Cho Seung-Hui, a senior in the English department, who the South Korean Foreign Ministry said had been living in the United States since 1992, was the only suspect named in connection with the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
March 2005: Jeff Weise stormed into Red Lake High School on a Monday afternoon and shot to death an unarmed guard, a teacher and five students before killing himself. Before the Red Lake shootings, Weise, allegedly shot dead his grandfather and his grandfather's girlfriend at the home he shared with them.
September 2003: Two students were killed at Rocori High School in Cold Spring Minnesota. Student John Jason McLaughlin, who was 15 at the time, was convicted and currently serving a life sentence in prison.
October 2002: An angry Tuscon AZ student shot and killed 3 nursing professors after he was not allowed to take an exam.
A Springfield, MA teacher stabbed in the classroom in Dec. 2001 by an angry student after being told to remove his coat hood during class.
A 14 yr old Santee CA student kills two students and wounds 13 others including a security guard in March 2001.
In August, 2000, a Lake Worth, Florida 13 y/o shooter kills teacher in the summer school program.
A 19 yr old shooter in Savannah, Georgia kills 2 and leaves 1 wounded in March 2000.
A 7 yr. old 1st grade student in Flint, Michigan shoots and kills another 6yr old.
On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two students in black trench coats fired guns and set off pipebombs that killed students and faculty members inside Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. After mercilessly killing 14 people and wounding 24 others, they turned their weapons on themselves ending the worst instance of school violence in America.
On April 1, 1999, in Kittrell, North Carolina, twin 11-year-old boys opened fire in their family's home, killing their father and wounding their mother and sister.
On May 21, 1998, a 15-year-old-boy killed his parents at their home and then methodically emptied 51 rounds from a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun at classmates at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. Two students died and another 22 were injured.
200 miles north, in Onalaska, Washington, a 15-year-old boy boarded a school bus with a 9mm pistol in his hand demanding his girlfriend get off the bus with him. He then went home and shot himself in the head.
On May 19, 1998, Jacob Davis, 18, shot and killed another student in the school parking lot in Fayetteville, Tennessee apparently because they had argued about a girl.
On April 25, 1998, a 14-year-old-boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students at an eighth-grade dance in Edinboro Pennsylvania.
On March 24, 1998, two students aged 11 and 13, in Jonesboro, Arkansas killed a teacher and four girls as they evacuated Westside Middle School during an apparent fire drill. Nine girls and one other teacher were wounded.
On December 1, 1997, a 14-year-old student at Heath High School in West Paducah Kentucky walked into his school spraying the school hallway with gunfire, killing three students and wounding five others.
On October 1, 1997, a 16 year-old student walked into his school expressionless, according to witnesses, and opened fire on schoolmates at Pearl High School in Mississippi, killing at least two people including a former girlfriend and injuring several others. The boy's mother was later found dead of multiple stab wounds. Authorities later accuse six friends of conspiracy, saying the suspects were part of a group that dabbled in satanism.
In February 1997, a 16-year-old student opens fire with a shotgun in a common area at the Bethel, Alaska, high school killing the school principal, one classmate, and wounding two others.
In February 1996, a 14-year-old student turned an assault rifle on his algebra class, killing two classmates and a teacher, in the central Washington city of Moses Lake.
A 15-year-old boy was arrested in rural Jackson Township, N.J., on charges of sexually assaulting and killing an 11-year-old.
A 16-year-old boy at Detroit's Denby High School was stabbed to death in January, 1996. Demetrius Anderson's death followed by one day the beating of a 16-year-old Pershing High School student with a lead pipe by gang members just off school property. A week prior, a 16-year-old student at Northern High School was shot inside that school. A year previous to that, three students were shot at Denby, Pershing and Redford high schools in three separate incidents in one day.
In January 1993, 17-year-old Scott Pennington walked into Deanna McDavid's seventh-period English class at East Carter High School in Grayson, Kentucky, and shot her in the head. He then shot janitor Marvin Hicks in the abdomen.
December 1992: Wayne Lo carried out his shooting rampage at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Massachusetts, killing two and wounding four more. He surrendered to police after his rifle jammed.
May 1992: Eric Houston, 20, killed four people and wounded 10 in an armed siege at his former high school in Olivehurst, California. Prosecutors said the attack was in retribution for a failing grade.
In 1992, at Tilden High School in Chicago, Delondyn Lawson, age 15, was killed by two shots from a .22 caliber semi-automatic handgun over the proceeds of a "dice game". Two other students were also wounded in the gunfire.
November 1991: Gang Lu shot five people to death, seriously wounded another, and then committed suicide at the University of Iowa.
January 1983: In St. Louis, Missouri, Parkway South Junior High School Eighth-grader, David F. Lawler, shot two of his classmates then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.
January 1979: Sixteen-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer used a rifle to wound eight children and one police officer at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and to kill the principal Burton Wragg and the custonian Mike Suchar. Her reason for the shooting she said was because, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."
In New York City a 16 year-old boy was shot and killed by his 15 year-old best friend. The 15 year-old killed him and then stole the coat and shoes from the corpse. Worst of all, the teenage killer had no feeling of remorse.
Another 15 year-old boy sprayed bullets around the parking lot of a convenience store, killing a teenage boy. When questioned later, he had not even a tinge of guilt or sorrow. Instead, he displayed hatred and a desire to do it all over again if he had the opportunity. He had no remorse whatsoever.
14-year-old Marcy Conrad of Milpitas, California, had been raped, strangled to death, and left lying off the road in the hills outside of town. According to the local paper, at least 13 students went out to look at her body. One girl picked up the murdered girl's jeans, cut off a patch, and threw the jeans down along the side of the road. One student tried to cover the body with leaves. Another took his eight-year-old brother along to see the body. One boy went twice. Those who saw the body went back to class or to the pinball arcade. One went home to bed. Another student said he only cared about collecting the marijuana cigarette he had won on a bet that the body was real. As the newspaper reported: "The shock is the shock of the of the encounter with icy indifference, the indifference of the kids in the first instance, but much more importantly, of the culture that produced them... The depersonalization did not begin yesterday; it is not unique to this moment, yet it seems more complete - and they seem more alienated and isolated - than we have ever known before."

What kind of despair drives children to this kind of violence?

Newsweek devoted its January 10, 1994 cover story to the disturbing topic "Growing Up Scared: How Our Kids Are Robbed of Their Childhood." In graphic terms, the article described the violent environment in which this generation of children is being raised. Some of them live in a combat zone. A child is 15 times more likely to be shot in the United States than in Northern Ireland. More American children are shot per year than are police officers. Parents in some inner-city neighborhoods make their kids sleep in bathtubs to protect them from stray bullets crashing through the walls. Some mothers keep short leashes on their little ones when walking through malls to protect them from potential molesters. Instruction is given to wide-eyed preschoolers on how to scream when approached by a stranger, and how to report unwelcome touches. Many children spend their after-school hours behind bolted doors and barred windows.

Riddled with gang violence, many of our inner cities have become powder kegs portending future collapse. Today, young people think about death and dying more than any other subject. In fact, surveys indicate they think about death even more than they think about the opposite sex. The demise of the traditional family and absence of religion have combined to create a culture of children who are morally retarded. In the wake of this, our Politically Correct society offers young people no consistent arguments against violence.

Amos 8:11

A Survey of Teen Violence