When I began to research this topic, I was weary of the "cliched-ness" of it all. I hail from East Carter High School- home of what was quite possibly the first high school shooting ever- and I've heard people talk about school violence so much that it seems everything that can be said has been said. But then I began to do the research, and found some disturbing trends. Every case of school violence seems to be middle or high school related. Try as I might, I was unable to find a single incidence of college violence; even college hazing reports seemed strangely absent from the newspaper and magazine articles that I searched. As I searched for any reports to the contrary, I notic

In the wake of all these school shootings, administrators and lawmakers have attempted to create some type of magical plan that will prevent these horrendous acts from occurring again. The only thing that they have proven, however, is that such a feat cannot be done. The murderers are as different as the schools that they attended, and the only distinguishable similarities that anyone has been able to find involve color and gender. I find it hard to believe that this is a coincidence. Furthermore, I find it impossible to believe that there is a place in this world where "these types of things just don't happen", as is heard every time a school shooting is reported. The profile for school shooters is Everyman, and the profile for location is Anywhere. "Normal" people are exactly the types of people who have committed these crimes thus far, and "normal" locations are exactly the locations that these crimes have occurred in; I see no reason for this pattern to end anytime soon. I went into this research paper wanting answers, and in that respect, I'm not satisfied with this report at all. I've found that there aren't any explanations for these acts of violence- only more questions. But I do have a better understanding of the situations involved, and that's more than I had when I began. I can only hope that, soon, everyone understands this phenomenon well enough to put a stop to it. Let's go back to the days of yore, when busting smokers in the bathroom was the biggest problem a school faced.

One of the first pieces of material that I found on my subject turned out to be one of the best: a review of an essay posted on an Internet message board in the days following the Santee shooting, entitled School Shootings and White Denial. This was supposedly such a scathing and controversial essay that "one man...[had] been fired for posting the article on his office bulletin". (Fernandez; Tawa) The review was pretty thorough, but I knew that this was an essay I just had to read for myself. Luckily, the reviewers had not exaggerated; an Internet search generated 3,150 results based only on the title of the essay, and I quickly found a full, unedited copy of the

Some common words found in the essay are:
Eric Harris, Carter School-, Tim Wise, Virgil Davis-, , Wise Wise, Movies Week, Fernandez Tawa, Columbine Santana, Columbine Santee, school shootings, white boy, college hazing, profile school, school shooting, profile school shooter, white people, school violence, school shooter, impossible believe, essay read, boy white boy, white boy white,
Approximate Word count = 1480
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)