Responses to School Shootings

News of the campus shooting at Northern Illinois University on Thursday revived the national discussion of violence in schools and what can be done to stop it. Is stricter gun control the answer, or should students be allowed to carry weapons for their own defense? What security measures can be taken to make schools safer? Does the media overhype these crimes, effectively glamorizing them and increasing national anxiety? In many ways, the debates surrounding school shootings reflect more generalized anxieties about the state of the nation.

Campus Shootings

SAUL LEVMORE - Saul Levmore posits that campus shootings – like hijackings – are attractive crimes for suicidal personalities seeking attention. Intense media coverage of these tragedies – which tend to focus on killers more than victims – does little to help predict likely perpetrators and may even encourage more crimes. Because campus shooters tend to be students who die along with their victims, Levmore acknowledges that the questions of security and deterrence are difficult ones....

Seven Days, Seven Shootings

ONLY REDHEAD IN TAIWAN - Robert Maguire notes that the Northern Illinois incident was the seventh American school shooting in as many days. Such incidences are much more common in the United States than in other developed countries, and he thinks that America’s gun control policy is to blame. While he believes guns are vital to maintaining a healthy balance between state and individual power, he thinks that these crimes are evidence that changes are necessary....

The Issue of Students Carrying Concealed Weapons

HUGH HEWITT - In response to the shooting at Northern Illinois, Hugh Hewitt talks to law professors Eugene Volokh (UCLA) and Glenn Reynolds (University of Tennessee) about whether students should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campuses for self-protection. The conversation covers issues such as faculty and student rights, the impact of media coverage, the confusing nature of some existing university policies, and the efficacy or profiling....

2.17.08

11:39 PM -

Oh boy.

stickywicket - Another one? How many of these must we go through? And why? A little social isolation and access to a gun, and you've got a prime recipe for, well, Columbine, Virginia Tech and NIU. Something has gone wrong when you have you perennial school shooting. What's spring without one?

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