Guns in Our Schools

Excerpt from The Rational Christian
Rising Crime Worldwide (Matthew 24:10,12; Genesis 6:5, 11-13)
Copyright © 2006 Christopher Creek Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

Just four decades ago, the idea of bringing a gun to school was unthinkable. Few would even have access to one. Guns were not common commodities on the streets. But over the past decade alone, crimes that were at one time considered sheer fiction have become a gruesome and omnipresent reality. On February 2, 1996, 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class killing the teacher and two students and wounding one other.

That same year, Thomas Hamilton killed 16 students and one teacher, and wounded 10 others at the Dunblane primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. On October 1, 1997 in Pearl, Mississippi, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed two students and wounded seven others after allegedly killing his own mother. Luke and his friends were purported to be Satan worshippers. That same year in West Paducah, Kentucky, three students were killed and five wounded by 14-year-old Michael Carneal as they stood together in a prayer circle at Heath High School. On March 24, 1998 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot and killed four students and one teacher during a false fire alarm at Westside Middle School. That same year in Springfield, Oregon, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel killed two students and wounded 22 others in his school cafeteria – a day after being arrested and released for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home. On April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado, the infamous Columbine High School shootings occurred. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 14 students (including themselves) and one teacher, and wounded 23
others in an hour-long shooting spree. They had planned to kill at least 500 and blow up the school. That same year in Taber, Alberta, Canada, a 14-year-old boy killed one student and wounded another at W.R. Myers High School, making it the first fatal high school shooting death in Canada in 20 years. On February 9, 2000 in Mount Morris, Michigan, a six-year-old boy shot and killed Kayla Rolland, also age six, with a .32-caliber
handgun at the Buell Elementary School. On March 5, 2001 in Santee, California, 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams shot and killed two and wounded 13 while firing from a bathroom at Santanna High School. On April 26, 2002 in Erfurt, Germany, Robert Steinhaeuser, 19, shot and killed 13 teachers, two students, and one police officer at the Gutenberg secondary school. Ten others were wounded.

To say that school shootings emerged from out of the blue to become a major threat in our communities is a gross understatement. No one would have dreamed of events like these just a decade or two ago. To those of us who remember a very different world when we were kids, it is bizarre to see metal detectors at schools. It is even more astonishing to see signs posted that say, “no guns allowed on campus – check your

weapons.” But not to be outdone by the grisly shootings we have witnessed in recent years, schools are now experiencing yet another new phenomenon. On April 6, 2001, ABC News reported that there have been more than 5,000 bomb threats in schools across the nation since the Columbine shootings, and they are continuing to disrupt educational programs without signs of relenting. States that track bomb threats have reported that since the carnage in Littleton, Colorado, there has been a significant upsurge nationwide. Potts Grove High School in Pennsylvania reported so many bomb threats this past year, that the administration is considering having bomb days at the end of the school year to compensate for all the closures.