How serious is School Shooting in the United States?
Informative Speech
Eric He
As a student, what is the worst thing that could happen to you at school? A school shooting. According to The Washington Post, there has been a school shooting every 2.5 days this year. Using a stricter standard, there have been at least twenty school shootings in 2018 (Donaldson-Evans).
It seems to most people that school shooting is not a problem in the past; however, the school shooting was a problem as well in history-- evil, scary and terrifying. School shootings took place in America, in fact, starting at the era of the settlers and Indians living in the country. “On August 1, 1966, former Marine sharp-shooter Charles Whitman, who unleashed havoc on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. Whitman positioned himself on the observation deck at the very top of the U.T. Tower. He killed 14 people and wounded 31 others. Prior to his attack on campus, Whitman killed his wife and mother” (Zavaletta). What is more absurd is the whole massacre was caused by a tumor in Whitman’s brain. This was not the first school shooting, it is certainly is an evil one (Zavaletta). If we care more, we will be more prepared for the horror; if we study more, we will be more prepared for the danger.
One of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was at Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting. The incident is still heartbreaking to people even today. There are a lot of things that happened on that day in order to make the day so memorable: innocent students were brutally slaughtered by the criminal, brave teachers gave their life for students, and despairing families suffered the rest of their lives. According to Alie Zavaletta, “Adam Peter Lanza, at the age of 20, is responsible for one of the most senseless and brutal (pair) attacks on a school. On December 14, 2012, Lanza shook the town of Newtown, Connecticut when he attacked Sandy Hook Elementary School. Lanza killed his mother, before entering the school where he killed 26 people and injured two others; the majority of his victims were children aging from five to 10 years old. He committed suicide upon completion of the attack” (Zavaletta). The massacre makes me think about the twenty sets of parents who are dropping their first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School six years ago, and from that day, they have forever lost their children. It is also six years ago that the families of six staff members who gave their lives for someone else’s children have lived with every day since.
The school shooters are not evil until you know how evil they are. American University students are people who usually have an open mind. As a result, there are a lot of conflicts existing within the university campuses due to different ideas of different people. Conflicts can usually be solved by communicating or debating; however, the legal access to guns allows students to harm other people more easily, and this fact makes the school shootings almost inevitable. According to VOA News, “Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at the Virginia Tech who suffers mental disorders, killed 32 people and injured 17 others in two attacks on campus, one at a residence hall and another at the Engineering, Science and Mechanics building.” Additionally, VOA News has another witness, “Student Derek O'Dell was in a room across the hall from where Cho began his killing spree. He said to Fox News that at first, everyone thought the noises they were hearing were the hammering sounds of construction. "It was pure carnage — blood everywhere, blood spewed against the walls," O'Dell remembered”. American universities tend to respect the personalities of students individuals. However, sometimes the “freedom” has become the “indulgence.”
What are the school shooters like? Sadistic, savage or screwed? Or Which school is going to be the next target? Nobody knows. Let us never react out of fear, but let us never fear to react.
Bibliography
Donaldson-Evans, Catherine. “Witnesses of Virginia Tech Massacre Paint Grim, Grisly Picture
of the Horror That Gripped Campus.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 17 Apr. 2007, www.foxnews.com/story/witnesses-of-virginia-tech-massacre-paint-grim-grisly-picture-of-the-horror-that-gripped-campus.
The school shootings which take place in the United States has caused tremendous amount of fear and disparity. Student Melanie Swift, Derek O’Dell, Sara Thompson were witnesses who experienced the massacre of Virginia Tech. They clearly express the situation as well as their feelings, especially focuses on the cruelty and the student perspective who experienced the massacre.
Vivinetto, Gina. “Celebrities Share Heartfelt Messages on Sandy Hook Shooting Anniversary.”
TODAY.com, TODAY, 14 Dec. 2017, www.today.com/popculture/celebrities-share- heartfelt-messages-sandy-hook-shooting-anniversary-t120062
This article, written by Gina Vivinetto, who share with her readers about the factors of celebrities’ feeling about the school shooting which takes place in Sandy Hook Elementary school. The most important thing that the passage is conveying to its readers is that the school shooting is a problem not only to the parents and staffs working in the school, but also everybody.
VOA News. “Deadliest School Shootings in Modern US History.” VOA, VOA, 15 Feb. 2018,
www.voanews.com/a/deadliest-us-school-shootings/4255548.html.
It is an article that is written by highly credible source, The VOA New, effectively discuss and gather the ten deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. She from the huge number that she put in her word. She emphasizes the fact as well as aftermath of the school shootings. It is very important because it is a collective source that can let the readers see the evilness behind the school shootings.
Zavaletta, Alie. “10 Deadliest School Shootings in U.S. History.” The Odyssey Online, Odyssey,
10 July 2018, www.theodysseyonline.com/ten-deadliest-school-shootings-history.
The fact of the school shooting has stirred up a lot of positive opinions of the gun control and the school security. The passage that is wrote by Alie Zavaletta is a list and succinct description and a tear down of the tremendous school shootings through out the entire history of the United States. The author clearly describes every one of the ten school shootings in order to help the readers to have a better understanding of the problem of school shooting. The importance of the passage is that it gives the massage to the people that don’t think school shooting is a problem as it is now a clear idea that school shooting also take places in the past, ever since the era of the colonization of the Europeans first came to United States.