Almost every day, there is a new story about violence in public schools in America. Over two hundred students have been killed in the past eight years alone. In the year of 2007, at least 45 people were injured or killed by school violence. This epidemic is spreading throughout the nation and attracting the attention of students. Some events have been publicized, such as the incident at Virginia Tech, whereas other shootings have not been receiving as much media attention, such as the shooting at Heritage High School, which occurred a month after the incident at Columbine. As students in a school as likely as any other to be victimized, we are more scared now than ever before. Many acts of school violence could be prevented if people actually followed all the gun laws in existence. For example, the shooter at Virginia Tech should not have been allowed to purchase a handgun after being classified as a danger to himself and those around him, but he was still able to purchase a handgun. If people know that someone is going to commit a crime that may endanger the lives of other people, they need to come forward and tell someone. They might not be responsible for the shootings completely, but they do have a moral obligation to let others know before any harm can be done. The shooters at Columbine actually had a blog about what they planned to do at their school. Unfortunately, no one believed it, and 13 people died because of it. This has not been the only instance in which the perpetrators have told people of their plans, and that is what makes everything all the worse. It could have been stopped. When did school go from a safe haven to a danger zone It actually began long before WWII. The first, most publicized shooting occurred in 1927, called the Bath School Disaster. 45 people were killed and 58 more were injured. The worst part about it was the fact that it was not a student who had done this; it was a school board member. This is not a problem just throughout the students, adults have been taking violent action against students too. The fact that students have to go to school constantly aware that anyone could be dangerous is something absolutely terrible. A number of things can influence people to commit such atrocious crimes. Many of them might suffer from abuse from their fellow peers or their families, making them feel vulnerable and weak. They might see the violence as a way to prove themselves. Many of them are on anti-depressants that are not FDA-approved for them, such as Prozac. Students are also influenced from television and gruesome video games. Some statistical websites claim that by age twelve, children have watched 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on television. This may influence them to copy the acts of certain characters on R rated movies/television shows. Some video games even show step-by-step instructions on how to commit a certain crime. Although there are many current policies in effect, we have been seeing many more school shootings in the past few years than we have ever seen before. Threatening the shooters with harsh punishments may not affect the shooters, as many of them shoot themselves after massacring a large amount of people. Instead of threatening potential murderers or buying high-tech technology devices, administrations should try to seek out students in need of therapeutic help and try to get them to work on getting rid of negative feelings. We need to make it more difficult to obtain weapons. School is a place for learning, but it is also becoming a place to commit hideous acts of violence. It is wrong that so many students are terrified of going to school because they know they may never come home. It

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