Just look at the "big picture". School age children are more likely to be hit by lightning that shot at school. Millions of children go to school every day & nothing happens.

I agree. I have always thought that one thing that might help is if we--or more specifically the media--stop giving these losers their 15 minutes of fame. Report on the shootings of course, but do not identify the shooters by name and definately do not post any pictures of them. But of course these shootings are cash cows for the media, so good luck getting them to comply. Ratings are more important than kids anyway.

Another in agreement here. The media publicity just fans the fires of other psychopaths.

This is just another reminder of why I don't have cable or watch much TV. Mainstream media has gone to the dogs. Or maybe it has always been that way, since the time of Hearst and the Spanish-American War, and probably before.

Before. At least now, with multiple new services able to give near realtime reports, they have to at least not make stuff up. Sure, they spin and slant, but but two hundred years ago, they just sometimes invented the news rather than choosing what to not cover.

Maybe this is a partial answer to your ``what is the world becoming nowadays'' question:

So far as I know, everyone who has shot up a school in the U.S. was a product of a U.S. public school. They were educated and socialized there, sometimes in the very school they shot up, and they never internalized any reason not to murder.

I think that we shouldn't be looking to school or to government to solve this problem: they seem to be the cause.

That statement could take other causes such as "culture" and "bad parenting" completely out of the loop though. Research a little on those factors when it comes to the perps -- you usually find something.

Sort of a conclusion to this whole sad story.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06279/727826-85.stm

My high school had a fatal shooting the year after I graduated, long before Columbine. My younger brother was within 200 feet of the two armed students when one opened fire, wounding a teacher and an assistant principal and killing another assistant principal. You bet your ass I worry about school shootings.

The recent incidents of adults invading schools is very disturbing because of the copycat factor. Our school system has really stepped up their lockdown drills and we've had at least two lockdowns of multiple schools in the past week because of crimes near schools.

Please check the numbers: school shootings in the US have been on a steady decline. Any loss of life is regretible, but the instant media makes it sound as if it is a very big problem. There have always been the mentally deranged and it is vertually impossible to prevent the occassional incident like the recent spate of shootings.

"There is nothing so frightening as ignorance in action."

I can recall some certain moronic individuals bringing pipe bombs, etc. to school one day in high school. I also recall certain kids wearing long trenchcoats, be them "goths" or otherwise. And I remember still others passing out copies of the "Anarchist's Cookbook". This was all years before Columbine.

It all comes full circle to parents. Kids will always be kids and get into a little bit of trouble, but parents have got to step up to the plate. And society, too, with deeming what is acceptable and what is not.