The first school shooting that we will look at is the West Paducah shooting of 1997. This shooting was one of the first to really grab the media’s attention and start the talks of the possible link between violent video games and school shootings. The West Paducah School shooting of 1997 left three students’ dead and five wounded in the West Paducah High School (New York Times, October 6, 1998). At the tender age of fifteen Michael Carneal was sentenced to life in prison for his shooting rampage in West Peducah. Carneal was not like most of the other shooters that shoot up their school in the sense that he did not turn the gun on himself after his rampage. Instead Carneal took the consequences of his actions.
We will move onto the Jonesboro School shooting of 1998. This may in fact be the worst of all the school shooting only because of the age and location of the shooters and the school. There were two shooters in the Jonesboro shooting the boys were 11 and 13 years old (History, March 24, 1998). The Jonesboro shooting took place at the Jonesboro Middle School and left four students and a teacher dead also wounding ten other people in the shooting (History, March 24, 1998). This shooting made the talks of there being a possible link to violent video games and school shootings possible. The reason for this is that these boys were not in the school when they wounded the ten students and killed four girls, and a teacher instead they shot these students and the teacher from the woods near the school (History, March 24, 1998).
We will now look at the third of the major four school shootings. This school shooting took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Out of all the middle and high school shootings this one may have left the longest lasting effect on the nation. The Columbine shooting was perhaps the most deadly of all the middle and high school shootings this shooting left twelve students dead and a teacher also resulting in twenty-three wounded (New York Times April 17, 2008). Columbine not to down play any of the other shootings was a blood bath like America had not seen in a high school ever before. We have had a number of high school shootings however they were nothing of this extreme.
The last of the major shootings took place at Virginia Tech. The Virginia Tech shooting was more than a bloodbath according to federal law enforcement (Hauser, Christine, April 16, 2007). This shooting was the worst killing spree that America has ever seen. There were thirty-three people killed in this shooting which is worse than the tower shooting at Texas University.
There is a common link between the West Paducah and the Jonesboro shootings and that is that the killers did not turn the gun on themselves like the Virginia Tech and Columbine shooters did. This showed that at the time of the West Paducah and Jonesboro shooting that the boys were probably not aware of the consequences of their actions. The West Paducah shooter Michael Carneal age 14 at the time of the shooting was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the shooting (New York Times, October 6, 1998).
However the Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold instead of going to prison and serving possibly the rest of their lives in prison decided to turn the gun on themselves. This would be an indication that Harris and Klebold were completely aware of their actions and decided not to chance getting a life in prison sentence and decided to take their own lives.
The same thing can be said for Seung-Hui Cho who decided to turn the gun on himself instead of facing life in prison or even possibly a death penalty for his deadly rampage. Cho could have easily faced the death penalty because his crime was a federal level crime. This means that the penalty for this crime could be more severe than the penalty for the Columbine shooting.
Do to the issues of these kids killing other school age children there have been many changes made to the sales of violent video games. Several legislatives members such as Joe Baca have stepped up the pressure of selling or renting a child games such as Grand Theft Auto, Doom, Duke Nukem or any other games that contain adult content. Baca has proposed Bill HR669 to fight this battle (Meltz, Barbara, 5/22/2003). Baca is not the only person fighting the battle against violent video games. The video game industry voluntarily based their rating system on every video game that is made or sold in America (Meltz, Barbara, 5/22/2003). However every few stores actually enforce how video games are sold.
However the biggest group of people that can actually fight this battle is parents of any young child. Parents are able to fight this battle in several ways that nobody else can help fight the battle against violent video games. First they are able to see the selection and monitor the selection of violent video games that their child plays. Secondly parents are able to discuss the difference between make believe and reality of these games with their child. This is the reason that we must look to the parents of other children to help fight the battle so that our own children are protected against the potential danger that over exposure to these violent and sometimes ultraviolent video games possess over our children and other kids.
Sources:
The New York Times Health
Teen-Ager Pleads Guilty in Fatal Shooting at Kentucky School
History
March 24 This Day in History
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-school-shooting-in-jonesboro-arkansas-kills-five
The New York Times
SHATTERED LIVES — A special report.; Caring Parents, No Answers, In Columbine Killers’ Pasts
Written By: PAM BELLUCK and JODI WILGOREN
Reference:
- www.nytimes.com/1998/10/06/us/teen-ager-pleads-guilty-in-fatal-shooting-at-kentucky-s
- www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-school-shooting-in-jonesboro-arkansas-kills-fiv
- topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/columbine_high_school/in
