10 Myths about school shooters

I know why school shootings get so much attention. It is because school is supposed to be a safe place. It is almost like going onto an airplane. The student and the parents put their faith in the school to take custody of the student. We are willing to give up some of our control for the good of our student and all students at the school. We have faith that the system will work and school will benefit the students and society.

School is something that almost every American has in common. We all have some sort of experience at school. I might have hated school at times. There were years were I was tormented by other students. I tried to avoid them in the halls as much as I could, but I never thought my tormentor would kill me. I never thought I would kill them either.

I saw an article, 10 Myths about school shooters. Two of the myths really caught my eye.

Myth No. 1. He didn't fit the profile.

In fact, there is no profile. There is no accurate or useful profile of students who engaged in targeted school violence, the researchers found.

The stereotypes of teens in Goth makeup or other types of dress are not useful in preventing attacks. Just as in other areas of security -- workplace violence, airplane hijacking, even presidential assassination -- too many innocent students will fit any profile you can come up with, and too many attackers will not.

The demographic, personality, school history, and social characteristics of the attackers varied substantially, the report said. Attackers were of all races and family situations, with academic achievement ranging from failing to excellent.


Myth No. 10. School violence is rampant.

It may seem so, with media attention focused on a spate of school shootings. In fact, school shootings are extremely rare. Even including the more common violence that is gang-related or dispute-related, only 12 to 20 homicides a year occur in the 100,000 schools in the U.S. In general, school assaults and other violence have dropped by nearly half in the past decade.