Last Wednesday, Bailey Colorado: six girls taken hostage, molested, one killed. Motive unknown.
Last Friday, Wisconsin: freshman teen kills high school principal. Motive: anger over being disciplined for tobacco posession.
Today: Paradise, Pennsylvania: six killed and seven critically wounded, at a one-room grade 1-8 Amish schoolhouse. Motive: who the hell knows?
Also today: two Las Vegas schools went into lockdown after a former student brought a .25 caliber handgun to the school. Don’t know what his motive or intentions might have been.
In two of these cases, the perpetrators were adults. In the other two, they were teens.
In the Bailey Colorado incident, the school was designed and built subsequent to the Columbine massacre, less than an hour away, and was designed with security in mind. Officials have stated that the horrifying event was much better contained than it might have otherwise been, but still, one student was killed, and many others traumatized.
Nationwide, schools have stepped up security procedures since the Columbine situation seven years ago that ended with the deaths of fifteen people, including the two teenaged shooters. Some schools have implemented metal detectors (which are costly and inefficient, given the variety of metal objects that are and must be carried into school each day); many have begun using video surveillance; most have implemented stricter visitor sign-in and badging procedures.
More schools are trying to get School Resource Officers — members of the police department assigned to schools — and this is probably the most effective avenue. SRO’s build a rapport with the students, and locally have gained insight into homes where abuse was ongoing, where drug trafficking occurred, and a number of other situations of interest to law enforcement. More importantly, they establish the kind of relationship with students where the kids know they’re there to help and protect them.
Sadly, SRO’s require funding, which is in short supply. And it’s only a step in the right direction, not the answer.
What is the answer? What on earth would make someone do such a thing?
The last question of your post is the one that needs to be answered, and the answer to that is the problem(s) that need to be resolved.
“What is the answer? What on earth would make someone do such a thing?”
There isn’t a single motive uniting these tragedies (and the Columbine killers, and the guy in Montreal). Accordingly, there isn’t a single answer.
Apparently, the Amish killer was avenging something from 20 years ago (when none of the victims had even been conceived). Apparently, he had no prior criminal record.