SchoolShootings #GunViolence #USHistory
What Sparked School Shootings in the 90s?
School shootings emerged as a significant issue in the US during the 90s. 📈 But what triggered this rise? Several factors contributed to this sudden escalation.
The Influence of Media
The 90s saw an explosion in media coverage. 📺 News outlets began extensively covering school shootings, which could inadvertently inspire copycats seeking attention.
- Increase in 24-hour news cycles
- Dramatic reporting on violent incidents
- Media sensationalism
Mental Health Concerns
Mental health plays a significant role. 🧠 In the 90s, there was limited awareness and conversation surrounding mental health issues.
- Lack of mental health education in schools
- Stigma around seeking help
- Insufficient mental health resources
Access to Firearms
Another critical factor is the accessibility of firearms. 🔫 During the 90s, obtaining guns became easier, and this trend continues today.
- Lax gun laws and background checks
- Proliferation of firearms in households
- Gun culture in the US
What Has Changed Post-90s?
As we transitioned from the 90s to today, the factors contributing to school shootings have evolved but remained persistent.
Social Media’s Influence
Social media platforms magnify issues. 🌐 They can perpetuate violence and exacerbate feelings of isolation or anger among individuals.
- Online bullying and harassment
- Platforms to broadcast intentions
- Glorification of past shootings
Changes in School Environment
Schools have changed over the years. 🎓 Increasing pressures and evolving societal norms impact students differently than before.
- Higher academic pressure
- Social isolation due to digital addiction
- Increased exposure to violent content
Efforts to Curb School Shootings
Despite the efforts, school shootings have not returned to pre-90s levels. 🛑 However, many initiatives aim to reverse this trend.
Legislative Actions
Laws and policies target gun control. 📜 Some states have implemented stricter regulations.
- Enhanced background checks
- Red flag laws
- Restrictions on firearm access
Mental Health Initiatives
Improving mental health resources is critical. 🏥 Schools and communities are investing more in these services.
- School counseling programs
- Anti-bullying campaigns
- Access to mental health professionals
Community and School Safety
Strengthening community bonds and school safety measures is crucial. 👮 Initiatives to foster a safe environment are underway.
- Increased security in schools
- Emergency preparedness drills
- Community outreach programs
Will We Return to Pre-90s Levels?
Achieving pre-90s levels of violence may seem challenging. 🚫 But with concerted efforts, it’s possible to reduce the frequency of school shootings.
- Continued advocacy for stricter gun laws
- Enhanced mental health support
- Promoting a culture of non-violence
Conclusion: The Road Ahead
Understanding why school shootings surged in the 90s is complex. 🧩 By addressing the root causes and implementing effective solutions, we can hope for a safer future.
Stay hopeful. Stay informed. Change is possible. 🌟
Things like the internet, and 24 hour news channels came into prominence.
Stephen king
Social media.
Designed to be addictive, photoshopped pics making people feel insecure, bullying and ridicule reinforced by mobs of confirmation bias. Add them all up and you get a disenfranchised individual with a community that is supporting their sick motives.
Copycats are a thing, unfortunately.
The media realizes they can captivate viewers when they cover it, and those who do the shooting realize they’ll get their “15 minutes of fame” because of it.
Columbine
In addition to what others are saying as far as the 24 hour new cycle, the internet and social media, I think a major turning point was the coverage and the obsession with Columbine. Instead of letting these killers fade into obscurity, you get nonstop coverage of them, including award-winning documentaries.
It’s 2 sides that feed on each other.
The rise of instant nationwide 24hour news means that every single sensational thing can and will be reported on. Even in the 90s, if something happened in a small town, it could take days for the news to get out potentially. And then there was the trouble of verifying it. You only had so many news vans and cameras.
Now everyone has a high definition camera on their person. And better communications technology. So it’s nothing to get footage sent in. And be reporting world wide within minutes of something breaking.
And that is coupled with people that know if they commit a school shooting, they will be immortalized. Much like the serial killers of the 60s-80s.
Columbine was Spring of ‘99. So it wasn’t a 90’s thing. At the time it was seen as a psychotic isolated event. I graduated HS in ‘99 in NY and we had no extra precautions…
The media and sensationalism. They have the ability to take a small thing and make it seem like it’s a big thing. And then because of them it becomes a big thing because of copycats and people wanting to be famous. I remember back in college a story on the news about “butt chugging on college campus everywhere”. Everyone looked at each other like no one actually does that other than some idiot in some small school in the middle of nowhere. Then a few days later some idiot is in the hospital with alcohol poisoning because he wanted to do it after seeing it on the news. Our media is toxic.
Just don’t forget that in order to gin up the numbers, they include things like a person who parked their car in an empty lot to commit suicide in the number of school shootings.
Couple things. First, It’s political. The gun control crowd has a mentality of every crisis is an opportunity so every shooting is leveraged in the media to enact gun control. Since the 90s news propagation is much faster. So you see it in seconds rather than waiting for an evening print or newscast that used to be ‘one one done,’ then they are discussed ad nauseum for weeks online. This sensationalizes shootings and brings it to the forefront, and more people go out and do it. Also with greater population there is more opportunity. Aside from the news cycle social media plays into people’s happiness. Keeping up with the perceived perfect lives of others, bullying, and counter cultures all factor in. While they have increased some, do to these issues, it’s really all the quick, in your face, 24/7 news and discussion that amplifies the issue.
The Columbine Massacre, and the publicity it generated, set a sick precedent. The media coverage rendered it (and the killers) the stuff of legend for copycats.
Edit to add: The media also dissected the lives and characters of each killer so thoroughly that it gave them more of an ideological (and personal) *identity* for copycats and wannabe copycats to ‘relate’ to and venerate.
“I’ll make you famous.”
Drugs (medication), social media and the internet, and reduction of the nuclear family.
Mental asylums disappeared by the 90s, so there wasn’t anywhere to put shooters when they were recognized as mentally ill. The vast majority of shooters show repeated signs of being insane for years before they act. Almost all of them would have been institutionalized 60 years ago before they could harm others.
The influx of general information and sentiment of every kind stoked seething mentalities in various ways. This, coupled with the current malaise (I call it “epistemosis”, but it’s basically just cherry picking”) is all you need to account for it.
School shootings are fundamentally “take it to the next level” operations. They shooter hasn’t done that yet. So it has a special character of bringing hope, even if it is objectively hopeless. That hope is then cherry picked, along with the time frame (“I’m *just* going to think about the next four hours”). Boom, you got a shooting.
JFC every answer on here is all about the media or mental health treatment and so on but no one is mentioning the availability of powerful guns! Are GOP bots descending on this thread?
The assault weapons ban died out in the 90s and since then manufacturers have churned out high-capacity semiautomatic weapons like we’re heading to war. You can buy them everywhere! When I was in high school in the 80s I wouldn’t even have known where to look for such guns. Now you just have to stroll into a fucking Walmart.
It’s. The. Guns!!!!
General breakdown of the social contract? Sort of a “first to the buffet” scenario: once someone breaks the seal and gets some food (wow this is a poor metaphor choice, but now I’m stuck on it), others realize that they, too, can go get food.
Hurt people often want others to hurt as well. With the societal and cultural focus upon oneself and the general moving away from teaching personal and social responsibility, that could also be leading to more instances of lashing out in lieu of something like suicide.
Other stuff, too, but people already covered that.
It started at the post office. I don’t know why it migrated to schools.
We are going through an information crisis similar to the one that happened when ‘just anybody could read’ or ‘just anyone’ could print a book. Everyone has a Voice now even the most insane and tiniest minority view. Everyone has an echo chamber and whoever that person is they can justify the choices they want to make. this leads to a culture in which civility and shared values no longer exist and contributes two things like school shootings or stealing elections
The rise in shootings coincides with people leaving the church en masse. It’s not the sole reason, but I suspect it is a big factor.
From my personal observations these seem to be the triggers. Social media. Consistent and never ending bullying on multiple platforms. Isolation when avoiding those platforms for any engagement with peers. 24 hr propaganda about how horrible things are, and how the “other” is taking over. Then just general incels, the assumption from easy access to porn that woman owe guys attention and affection.
Just my opinion, but those seem to be the driving factors. I have two sons and one has CP, he gets bullied for being different. Thankfully he is too young for social media, but if/when he joins up I am worried the bullying may persist there. While kids today seem more accepting and inviting than in the past, there is a great deal more isolation where it seems most all engagement with peers happens online and rarely in person.
The ban on assault style weapons expired in the 90s and its even easier to get guns now.
What classifies as a school shooting?
People are more angry. The internet fuels all sorts of bitter bullshit. And owning guns has become a status symbol. We sell 4 times as many guns per year than 20 years ago.
There are a lot of reasons listed here but no one has said EASY AVAILABILITY OF FIREARMS.
Kids can glorify, copycat, threaten, whatever violence in their huge imaginations but cannot act on those threats unless there is a weapon available for them to use. Too many adults don’t lock up their guns, don’t understand the threat of allowing easily influenced kids to access them, or downright buy them for their kids.
Stop letting kids have access to guns and school shootings will diminish to pre 90s levels again.
Jesus Christ people. The assault weapon ban of 1994 expired in 2004. It’s not complicated.
You might find [this story helpful](https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750656174/the-u-s-once-had-a-ban-on-assault-weapons-why-did-it-expire). From 1994 to 2004 there was a federal bill that banned ownership of some assault-style weapon and limited magazine capacity. In 04, the bill expired and it was not renewed even in the wake of Sandy Hook in 2012. The linked article was written in 2019 for context. In 2022, the House of Representatives passed the renewal, thus passing the bill on to the senate where they could not reach a decision in time so the bill died and all assault weapons remain legal at the federal level.
Honestly, Columbine was so mind blowing, no one even really thought about shooting up a school before those guys. Everyone was in shock. It was all anyone talked about at school for a week. We basically just had group therapy sessions instead of regular classes for a few days afterwards. That’s how extremely unsettling and unexpected Columbine was. They basically created a fad
Social contagion. We see this with other things in our youth culture. Sad.
It’s because schools are still shitholes regulated by the biggest shitheads, filled with shithead teachers who teach shithead students raised by shithead parents.
The internet
Because nothing has changed to try and bring them down?
I mean c’mon the solution being proposed is arming teachers and bullet proof vests for kids!
I also believe a lot of people cannot deal with emotions correctly this day and age and it’s getting worse. Technology while a blessing is also a curse when it allows so much instant gratification and literally anything and everything is at your fingertips. I feel humans as a whole are losing that personal aspect of connecting in person and it negatively affects how people deal with things emotionally.
I fully believe the environment we created is progressively getting worse for our designed brains. And the unbalanced, chaotic energy we breed and never address continues to get worse and spread like an angry wildfire.
We continue to fuel it with unsafe societal practices, heated politics, and hate-filled egotistical mindsets.
Because people keep talking about them, unfortunately that is just as much the reason as everything else
The Columbine shooting in 1999 started the trend. Most mass school shootings that have happened ever since have been an imitation of Columbine.
There were school schootings before Columbine, but most of them were just a kid bringing a gun to school and accidentally or intentionally shooting another kid.
Oh you know, mentally unstable families creating mentally unstable kids who are forced to live through once-in-a-lifetime traumatic events on an at least annual basis, as well as an almost “martyr” perspective towards those who have “taken matters into their own hands” via social media channels and a general lack of empathy.
Oh and like, idk, violent video games or sugary cereals or something /s
The real answer is the breakdown of families, genuine social safety/services, and religion.
To me, it was like Pandora’s Box. No one had really considered a mass school shooting planned and carried out by students before Columbine. Then rmthat nade legends out of the shooters. Now kids who are angry or ostracized or mentally ill or suicidal have that has a well known option. It was an evil released into the world, and there is no going back.
Because once people realized it was an option, it became an option
All I can say is the late 80’s early 90’s saw a huge push be big pharma to give mind altering drugs to young boys to treat ADHD, then they introduced SSRI’s that are known to cause suicidal thoughts in teens and young adults.
Another study said that school shootings are most often a suicide attempt as the shooters often have no intention of surviving the event.
This is also about the time that violent video games became prevalent. A study funded by the gaming industry says there’s no correlation.
Is it possible one or both of these events caused issues. Nobody knows for sure.
What we do know is that guns in the country have been easily accessible for the country’s entire history. Something else must have changed. I presented two possibilities, there may be more.
There’s an overall breakdown in American society which makes it easier for people to feel they are not part of the local community, and these acts of extreme violence typically come from people who feel isolated. Studies show that people have less and less friends. There is an increasingly more car centric culture, a lack of “third spaces.” Suburban white kids in particular don’t participate in unstructured play like they used to. They go to school then go home and sit at home on the internet. In the past people would go out and have interactions in person. Many countries that are not America have still maintained this culture.
Was that the end of assault weapons ban?
I think it has something to do with school shootings, mass shootings in general being normalized. When the Columbine shooting happened I was a new mom and I remember being devastated seeing such a horror. Now the death and suffering is so common its just another day, just another story.
Increase prevalence of psychiatric medication may have something to do with it.
Cost of living and general deterioration of the middle-class may also have an effect.
I actually think school shootings will slow down, but spree shootings will replace them. That is – a killer will start at one location, then move to another, and keep going as long as they can. They might start at their school, but then quickly go to another location that isn’t on high alert. School shooters know that the response to a school will be massive. They will adapt to hit other, more open, targets, like malls and hospitals.