Last Friday, a twelve-year-old Virginia boy chose to commemorate the last day of school by expressing his anger at how other kids treated him. Outraged at how he had been teased about his weight, his glasses, and his clothes, he brought several guns with him to school. His mother, a school cafeteria worker who drove him to school that morning, saw the guns but did not ask her son about them. Later that day, the boy retrieved the guns from his mother's car. Dressed in full camouflage and wearing a red bandanna over his face, he walked into the principal's office with a loaded shotgun and ordered everyone to get down. They did.

While the boy roamed the halls of the school, the school went into lockdown and police were summoned, following nationwide procedures devised after the Columbine shootings. They stormed the building, and subdued the boy before anyone was hurt. Things could well have turned out differently: The boy and and several friends had been planning a violent takeover of the school, with the aim of hurting or even killing those who had been mean to them. But at the last minute, the boy's principal accomplice backed out and he was left to terrorize the school alone. The accomplice has since been charged with conspiracy to possess firearms on school property. The boy himself has been charged with possession of a firearm by a minor, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, conspiracy to commit abduction for money and conspiracy to commit murder. He is being held without bail. His mother, who did not know of the plot, has been charged with possession of a weapon on school property.

Stories like this one are becoming archetypal. We have heard so many of them by now; parallel episodes at other schools in other places are reported seemingly constantly in the papers. And some of the most influential narrators of our time are recognizing this. Say what you will about Michael Moore and his fast-and-looseness with facts in Bowling for Columbine, the man saw an archetypal story in the making, and in his film he made a powerful bid to be the guy who tells us what the archetype ultimately means.

Moore is not alone, though. Francine Prose, the novelist who brought us Blue Angel, a chilling tale of how so-called progressive campus policies on sexual harassment recreate a punitively neo-Puritanical campus culture, has recently turned to teen fiction in order to meditate on the Orwellian character of post-Columbine schools' safety measures. After is well worth reading, not for its literary value, but for its historical interest as a document seeking to comment constructively on how the phenomenon of school shootings is reshaping--and at points misshaping--the terms upon which kids today grow up.

Where Moore's film argues that America's love affair with guns predisposes disgruntled kids to try to solve their problems with guns, Prose's novel argues that the post-Columbine preventive measures instituted by schools across the country--the metal detectors, the random searches, the surveillance cameras, the pervasive atmosphere of distrust and suspicion--pose their own very real threat to kids' freedom and wellbeing.

Both Moore and Prose are seeking to shape an emerging, recurring pattern into some semblance of meaning. As mythmakers--and Moore is much more in the business of telling viscerally powerful stories than in making objective comments--both see in school shootings the outlines of an archetype for our moment. Both recognize that school shootings are fast becoming a defining event in our age, and both are, in the earnestly aggressive manner of the fabulists they are, eager to define what that event will come to mean to us. They are aware that above and beyond the practical problems schools face when confronted with preventing and managing violence, there looms the problem of what it all means--or, to be more precise, of what we are going to decide, collectively, that it means. What we say about school shootings, after all, says a lot about us.

I'm interested in readers' thoughts--on the Virginia case, on the larger phenomenon of school shootings, on the related phenomenon of school safety programs, and on the ways and means artists and commentators are working to frame our understanding of it all. Comments are welcome.

School shootings remind me of the statistician who always packed a bomb in his suitcase before flying ("The chances of there being TWO bombs on the plane are infinitesmal(sp?)").(Maybe it makes sense to not announce "gun-free" zones?). It might be prudent to instruct students in the proper use of firearms so that they would gain a visceral sense of the constrained power (as opposed to the bloodless destruction of video games). It might also lead to a sense of responsibility and to a sense of civic engagement.

Let me guess without looking at the article. The child is white. What is it about the PC culture that leaves white males as the only allowable target for ridicule. If this child had been a minority, or maybe a girl, then we'd be hearing about how the white male dominated system oppressed them, forcing them to act out.

The truth is plain, middle schools are evil.

I teach Columbine in a Media course. I use an excellent documentary produced by the Dart Center titled, "Colvering Columbine."

It is particularly useful for debunking the media myths about Columbine, and it is nice to see several national reporters admit they published and broadcast inaccurate reports [For those of you who don't know, the entire "trenchcoat mafia" story had no basis in fact - in the case of Klebold and Harris. And yet, in schools around America, kids wearing trenchocats were summoned to principals' offices]. Perhaps the documentary's most memorable moment is when a reporter from an Arizona paper (a young woman) talks about how all the older reporters who descended upon Columbine were ready to believe the worst about the kids, and were easily taken in by pranksters and kids bitter about the coverage. She talks about being angered by the overheated rhetoric concerning the video game "Doom" - all the reporters on the scene, she was the only one who had any familiarity with it because she had friends who played it.

Stories on youth culture in the US press will always have a bias towards the sensational (this includes documentaries). See the NYTimes Magazine piece on "hooking up" and "friends with benefits" recently. It is a real problem for people who work with kids everyday. The media's distorted reality incites fear and mistrust, and leads to an increase in intergenerational conflict.

When teaching Columbine, I ask a simple question: Why could the journalists NOT frame this story as two children with serious mental illness who happened to slip through the justice system and parents' vigilence? Why did this HAVE to be portrayed as a societal issue, and what are the effects of this kind of reporting?

I will note that the FBI Forensic Expert's report on Columbine supports the notion that Harris was a completely "irretrievable" psychopath, "a brilliant killer without a conscience." See this article:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2099203

As to the "spate" of school shootings, or their "commonality", I refer you to:

Sheryl Gay Stolberg's "By the Numbers: Science Looks at Littleton and Shrugs" New York Times, May 9, 1999: "The reality is that schools are very safe environments for our kids," said Dr. Jim Mercy, associate director for science in the division of violence prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It turns out that the overall number of school shootings declined throughout the 1990s, and continues to decline today.

Enough of this rant. The kids are alright!

On the one hand, this particular incident is 100% the fault of the mother (and I presume the father too) for reasons that should be obvious.

On the other hand, it is worth noting for the last two General Assemblies here in Virginia the NRA has made legalizing guns on school property under any and all circumstances a top priority. Luckily they failed, otherwise many of the charges in the case could not have been filed.

In other words, much as I hate his fat, anti-American guts, Moore is essentially right about the impact of lax gun laws on our culture and society. You can hem and haw and quote the second clause of the 2nd Amendment out of context all you want, but the truth remains other industrialized countries have exponentially lower levels of murder than we do.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote of being interviewed after Columbine. It went about like this - not exact quotes but this is the accurate sense of the interview:

Reporter: Wants to know how movie violence contributes to shootings.

Ebert: Violence in movies isn't the problem.

Reporter: What about the movie ____?

Ebert: That was a box office failure and almost certainly wasn't seen by the Columbine shooters.

Reporter: But don't you think that guns in movies contribute?

Ebert: The real problem is how the media over-reports shootings. Every kid who feels sorry for himself thinks he can get attention and go out in a blaze of sympathy. It's the media that should control itself.

At this point Ebert wrote that the reporter turned off the camera and went in search of someone to support the theory she wanted to broadcast. He maintained his view that absurd reporting of reality rather than fiction was the problem.

I agree with Ebert. Anyone else?

Let's talk about the student's teachers who said (paraphrased, not quoted) -- He was always being teased about his weight, his glasses, and his style of dress, but he never responded.

THEY LET IT GO ON -- it's okay, 'cause he didn't seem bothered. He's 12 YEARS OLD! Where's the sense of outrage here?

Where on this planet does his mother get off allowing him to have guns in the car on his way to school, unless they have a planned, supervised, shooting outing planned immediately afterward. I'm all for children and guns -- SUPERVISED so they learn the RIGHT way to handle them.

And Michael Moore couldn't get any less factual on this than on any other topic on which he's reported. Part of making an informed opinion is to learn how to verify sources, and this source is totally unreliable.

Tipsy, please read "Seven Myths of Gun Control", with sources and references to check out, then re-post your assertions?

Thank you

"Police arrived a short time later, and the boy was arrested without incident."

Thank goodness Bull Run Middle School is safe once more for the bullies.

1) This is the first I've heard about a Columbine-style shooting in years. (And it never even reached the point of shooting.)

2) Both the rise and disappearance of those incidents have no obvious correlation to changes in gun availability, gun control, cliquishness or bullying. I remain convinced that the overwhelming driving factor behind those shootings was widespread media coverage of previous shootings. When Osama bin Laden took over the news, shooting up your high school became a less obvious outlet for angst.

3) The mother is getting off far too lightly.

T, to use one of the more violent industrialized countries, the UK, as an example, there were roughly 1,000 homocides in Engalnd and Wales in 2002 out of a population of roughly 53 Mil. In the US there were roughly 14,000 homocides for 280 Mil. people. Do the math. We have 14 times more murders for only 5 times the population. And contrary to belief, the UK has not banned all guns, but they do have licensing and registration.

You may be surprised to hear this, but I actually agree with your earlier post to a certain extent. If more adults got more kids into hunting and other shooting sports in a surpervised setting, it would do the youth of this country a lot of good. But unfortunately not every kid has a responsible adult in their life and we have to deal with the realities of gun violence.

I've read the article the M2 links to, and it's important to note one thing that seems to be missed by everyone talking about Columbine:

Klebold and Harris did not intend for it to be a "school shooting" and, in fact, held such events in contempt. Columbine was intended to be a bombing, a mass slaughter, and the guns were to "shoot down fleeing survivors."

The FBI believes that the psychology of Klebold was such that trying to use Columbine as a template to understand bullied students will be counter-productive. (Harris is an easier psychological type, that of a follower. Klebold, according to the profile, was actively psychopathic - bullying didn't trigger his plan, only created a focus for it.)

Overall, though, I agree with the sentiment that things like this could be stopped if the teachers pay attention to bullying and have real consequences for it - and for fighting. In my K-6 years, I remember exactly one fight, broken up within the minute by playground monitors, both parties penalized. If attention of that sort is paid, then you don't hear about the school in the news.

Best way to convince the kids that guns are not toys and that life is not like a video game: arrange to visit a big city hospital's emergency room some Saturday night. Let them look at the real consequences of being shot, up close and personal. It's not pretty, and it's not romantic. Then let them see some of those who survived gunshots: the scarring, the permanent loss of tissue, muscle mass, or movement, the psychological trauma (PTSS) that many live with afterwards.

When I was a kid, we grew up around guns. We were taught to hunt for game (squirrels, rabbits) that could be eaten (even if you had to stew them a long time 'til they were tender enough to eat). We saw the consequences of shooting something, up close and personal. None of the kids I knew ever used a gun deliberately for violence against anyone, with two exceptions - both were in self defense against strangers breaking into their homes. I also pulled a gun once in the middle of the night when someone tried to break into my house; fortunately, my dog managed to scare him away or I'd have had to put a .357 through him. Even the thought of it still gives me the shakes, but I'd have done it if I had to. The strongest lesson I ever had was to never point a gun at someone, but if I ever did, I'd better be ready to use it and, if not, I'd better not even have it in the first place. Courtesy of my godfather, the deputy sheriff and ex-military MP.

No, kids taught to properly handle and respect guns as tools generally don't go around shooting people. City kids who consider guns either toys or symbols of power - now those are the ones who frighten me with their potential to kill.

Part of the problem is that public schools are total institutions, in a way not found elsewhere in American society outside of prisons. You have no choice about attending, and if you don't like what's going on, you can't leave. At the same time, these total institutions are often chaotic in their internal operations. Because of interventions from the lawsuit industry, coupled with timid and don't-care administrators, students who create problems for other students are retained in the school and suffer little in the way of meaningful (to them) sanctions.

These considerations don't represent the whole story on school violence, but they are significant factors in it.

Ebert is a clueless jackass. He should stick to reviewing movies and otherwise STFU. Kids don't do it for publicity, moron. They do it because they've been bullied past the limits of their endurance.

This is not about guns. Take away the guns and the kids would probably just kill themselves, which I know some people would prefer. Bullies are ruthless and nobody wants to do anything about them. Counseling doesn't change that. In fact, by sending the kid to counseling and not doing anything about the bullies, the kid realizes he's being blamed, he's alone, and he's in an impossible situation. At least a karate class would give him a way to deal with physical attacks.

M2:

When teaching Columbine, I ask a simple question: Why could the journalists NOT frame this story as two children with serious mental illness who happened to slip through the justice system and parents' vigilence? Why did this HAVE to be portrayed as a societal issue, and what are the effects of this kind of reporting?

This is from an article titled Clique...Clique...Bang! by Dan Savage (of the column Savage Love). It was on page 18 of the May 14, 1999 issue of the Chicago READER. And for the record, what he says about his HS experience also applies to mine.

While I didn't suffer the extreme abuse some of my friends did, I was fucked with enough to spend four years fantasizing about blowing up my high school and everyone in it...[Harris and Klebold] were hateful, twisted, racists...But they didn't go guns blazing into a vacuum...In our rush to make martyrs of the victims and demons of the murderers (the cover of Time screamed, "The Monsters Next Door!") the culpability of the other kids at Columbine has been glossed over. So long as some kids go out of their way to make high school hell for others--while teachers and other students stand by doing and saying nothing--there will be kids who crack, and not all of them are going to quietly off themselves...

I noticed that of course Michael Moore and the NRA came in for their usual mention in cases like this. What Michael Moore, the fat slob, missed completely about the NRA is that the NRA spends a huge amount every year on education as to gun safety and how to handle guns properly and under proper supervision, etc. The Michael Moores of this country intentionally miss this because it suits their political agenda.

What I find frightening about this article and the other article posted today is the way they juxtapose what I think is a major problem today. The parents buy all these games and movies for their kids and instead of spending time with the kid they just hand them another game which makes it OK to kill everything in sight and then pat yourself on the back. Someone gets in your face, then kill them. Someone talks bad to you, kill them. You don't get your own way, kill them. The answer to all life's problems, kill them. Then we have the colleges teaching people to design even more of these games so that more kids will learn that the answer to all life's problems is kill them. Granted most of the kids are grounded enough to get past all this. However, when, as the others post above, the kids are bullied and the school does nothing to stop it or protect the kids, then the response is what the kid has learned at home from what the parents have made available, kill them.

The other thing that amazes me is that the parent did nothing when she saw the kid had the guns. What was in her mind that she thought this was OK? Was she that oblivious to the fact that this was inappropriate stuff to take to school? Major malfunctions there as well. This whole incident is beyond f*cked up!!

Jim C.:

I am sorry you, Dan Savage and countless others endured horrible High School experiences. But I note you, Dan Savage, and countless others did not blow up your school or kill anyone (as far as I know). In fact, school shootings have declined in number since the late 1980s. That is statistically verifiable (see NYTimes citation above). Something intrinsic to Klebold and Harris made them, well, Klebold and Harris. Same with the Jonesboro and Paducah shooters. And this Virginia kid. Statistically speaking, you have less chance of being shot in school today than you had in 1988. My point is: is it responsible for the media to always miss the larger (and perhaps counterintuitive) context in favor of the sensational one?

It's not the bullying--it's the Mom who drove him to school with guns. Can they charge her, too?

The mother has been charged.

A note to all here--a new and excellent analysis of this entire issue is just out courtesy of Katherine S. Newman and her colleagues. The book, Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, uses a number of approaches to explore school shootings. Newman and her colleagues note that there is NO ONE REASON why some extremely troubled and angry boys (it's almost always [but note I say almost] boys)decide that fiery and dramatic mass murders with guns are their best revenge. Almost anyone who's ever been to middle school, junior high or high school will have had some of the experiences that school shooters do, but they don't have all of them at once, and therefore don't reach the kinds of tipping points that seem to trigger these events. For instance, I wasn't surprised that the boy in question lived in a very small town. But to find out why, you've got to read Newman's book.

The original author mentions that these events and images have become archetypal. I completely disagree with her. Are we comparing these images to an archetype, which implies an ancient truth of some sort, to the passing stories of school shootings, which I believe will have their hey-dey and end. I believe that's really blowing this, an incident that is minor in the grand scheme of things, way out of proportion. If anything, media over-exposure of these stories are creating stereotypes, not archetypes.

Tipsy,

for the last two General Assemblies here in Virginia the NRA has made legalizing guns on school property under any and all circumstances a top priority. Luckily they failed, otherwise many of the charges in the case could not have been filed.

I frankly disbelieve you that the NRA is advocating that students be able to bring loaded firearms on campus, but even if they are, what difference would that make in this case? None in the direction that you want, because (a) if some armed teachers had been present, there would have been even less risk to the rest of the students, and (b) the NRA isn't advocating abolishing the crimes of assault with a deadly weapon, so what would it matter if this kid couldn't be charged with simultaneous lesser crimes?

Oh, and Tipsy:

the truth remains other industrialized countries have exponentially lower levels of murder than we do.

That is indeed a fact, but it doesn't have the significance that you appear to think it does. For just one example, a century ago it was as easy to buy a handgun in London as it was in New York City. How easy?--just walk in, plop down your money, and get your revolver--no questions asked, no ID verified, no age check, nothing. At that time, the murder rate in London compared to NYC wasn't much different than obtains today. So whatever reason might explain the different homicide rates between England and the US, surely the mere presence and easy access to firearms has very little to do with it.