Even the worst massacre in a school in the history of the United States seems to be forgotten after a few days. The 20 May 1927, Charles Lindbergh is the first human to fly nonstop and only over the Atlantic. His flight goes down in history, and, at the same time, makes no one else talk about the attack in Bath in the US.
Two days before, the 18 May 1927, passed away 45 people in a massacre at a school in that town in the state of Michigan. for an attack with explosives; most of them were schoolchildren from first to sixth grade. The attack was perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe, a member of the school committee, who believed that a tax increase to benefit the school would have bankrupted it.
The production of pyrotol, an explosive available after the First World War, and also used by Kehoe, was suspended a year later. But that did not necessarily have to do with the attack. There simply weren’t enough raw materials left, other than World War II remnants, in the US Army.
The tragically famous Columbine massacre
The attack at Columbine High School, Colorado, 72 years older later, also known as the Littleton School Massacre, was, on the contrary, etched in the memory of the entire country. Two seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered, within almost an hour of 20 April 1999, a 12 schoolchildren between 14 Y 18 years old, to a teacher, and then committed suicide.
The massacre is considered an archetype of the attacks on schools, which then increased abruptly. The term “Columbine effect” arises because many later attackers were inspired by this brutal slaughter. And the concept of “Columbine generation” is another neologism related to the attack in Colorado, used to this day. All schoolchildren born after 16 April 2005, in the United States, are qualified as of the “Columbine generation”: children and young people who do not know a world without shootings in schools.
It is considered that the president of the United States. At the time, Bill Clinton was the first American president to fail in the attempt to reform the laws to carry arms in that country. Clinton wanted to control the arms market and its buyers, at least on weekends. Although the Senate approved a more lax form of this measure, the House of Representatives rejected the reform.
So that at least the children are safer in the future, Washington invests millions of dollars in the project “Police in schools”. Since then, some 26.000 establishments are guarded by police forces. Added to that are video surveillance installations, metal detectors and locked entrances to school buildings during classes. Alarm drills are carried out regularly, and documents are checked when entering schools.
Did these measures have an effect? None.
This is the second worst shooting in a school in the United States in its history, worse than the Columbine massacre and only surpassed by the Sandy Hook massacre, in Connecticut, where they died 28 people, including the perpetrator.https://t.co/FCQh5ejKzo
— The Spectator (@elespectador) May 20, 2022
Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia
The 21 March 2005, at Red Lake High School, Minnesota, a student of 16 years he shot dead five classmates, a security guard and a teacher, and then committed suicide. On October 2, 2006, at the West Nickel Mines School, Pennsylvania, a man from 32 murdered five female students before shooting himself same. All these crimes, very soon, are forgotten.
But after the attack on Virginia Tech, the United States does not it could have just moved on to something else. The 16 April 2006, a student from 32 years kills, on the university campus, in Blacksburg, Virginia, 32 people, and then commits suicide. In that state, everyone can buy weapons without problems from the 14 years.
However, President George W. Bush was nearing the end of his term in office, and he did nothing more than emphasize that every citizen of the United States has the right to carry a weapon, but must respect the laws. That is to say, that once again no law to buy or carry weapons is modified, and the terrible consequences of this are not long in coming.
Illinois, California , Connecticut
The 15 February 2008, at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, a student of 27 years he executes five people in a classroom and commits suicide. On April 2, 2012, at Oikos University, in Oakland, California, a man from 43 enters a Christian school and shoots seven adults to death.
Then comes the 14 from December to 2012, and the United States falls into a state of shock, again, for a few days. Twenty students from Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, are victims of an armed attack, as well as six employees of the establishment and the mother of the perpetrator, before the young man from 20 years old, a gun fanatic, suicide.
The powerful US National Rifle Association (NRA) claims to know how such killings can be prevented in the future: it proposes that all schools of the country are watched by armed police. Scott Brown is the first Republican politician to call for a total nationwide ban on assault rifles; but he backtracks soon after.
At least something changes in the state of New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders ban on private possession of rifles and magazines with more than seven shots. Colorado and Connecticut are also tightening their gun possession laws. In Congress, President Barack Obama fails, on the contrary, with an initiative for the prohibition of semi-automatic weapons in private hands and for the verification of arms buyers. The spiral of violence continues to rise unchecked.
California, Washington , Florida, and twice Texas
June 7, 2013, at Colegio Santa Monica, California, a man from 23 years old murders five people before being shot dead by the Police. The 24 October 2014, at Marysville High School, Washington state, four people die because a teenager from 15 years shoots indiscriminately around him, before doing it against himself. On October 1, 2018, at Umpqua Community College, Oregon, a student from 26 years he executes eight students and one teacher, and suicidal later.
And again a massacre has to happen with many more dead, until society and the US political class stop to reflect for a moment. At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, 17 persons, 14 of them teenagers, died on 14 February 2018, after a young man from 19 years old perpetrated an attack at the school where he was a student.
The president, at that time, is Donald Trump, who advocates arming teachers, instead of toughening gun laws. Shortly thereafter, Trump renounces his idea of raising 15 a 21 years the minimum age for the purchase of certain weapons. A week after the massacre, the Florida House of Representatives voted: 71 votes against 36, against of stricter gun laws.
The 18 May 2018, a student at Santa Fe High School in Texas, shot dead eight of his classmates and two teachers, and also hid explosive devices around the school. school. And, now, another massacre has occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where a young man murdered at least 19 children and two teachers. The offender has 14 years.
Read more:
The National Rifle Convention is held for Friday in Texas despite the shooting in Uvalde
Gun manufacturers lose immunity in New York and may be sued
“You’re not doing anything”: They capture on video the moment in which Beto O’Rourke interrupts and blames Greg Abbott for the tragedy in Uvalde