It's Not Gun Control but a Violent, Racist society that Killed 20 Children in Newtown Connecticut
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| Flags are flying at half-staff across Connecticut in remembrance of the victims of the Newtown elementary school shooting. Unfortunately the Stars and Stripes are themselves dripping with blood. |
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| Sandy Hook Elementary School on morning of shooting. |
There have been repeated acts of killings in schools and shopping malls in the United States. As the following history shows, mass killings at schools and other public places are almost the norm in America.On May 20, 1999, Heritage High School, Conyers, Georgia, six students were injured by a 15-year-old shooter. On November 19, 1999, in Deming, New Mexico, Victor Cordova, Jr., 12, shot and killed 13-year-old Araceli Tena in the lobby of the Deming Middle School. And on December 6, 1999, at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, four students were wounded when Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at the Fort Gibson Middle School.
On February 29, 2000, at the Mount Morris Township, Michigan, six-year-old Kayla Rolland was shot dead at Buell Elementary School by six-year-old Dedric Owens with a .32-caliber handgun, which he had found in his uncle’s home.
On March 10, 2000, in Savannah, Georgia, two teenagers were killed by a 19-year-old, while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach High School. On May 26, 2000, English teacher Barry Grunow was shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nathaniel Brazill, 13, with a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes. On January 17, 2001, a student was shot and killed in front of Lake Clifton Eastern High School in Baltimore, Maryland. On March 5, 2001, two students were killed and 13 wounded by Charles Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a bathroom at Santana High School in Santee, California. On March 7, 2001, 14-year-old Elizabeth Catherine Bush wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School in Williamsport, Pa.
On March 22, 2001, Jason Hoffman, 18, wounded a teacher and three students at Granite Hills High School, Granite Hills, California. On March 30, 2001, a student at Lew Wallace High School in Gary, Indiana, was killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a 17-year-old student who had been expelled from the school. On November 12, 2001, Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages at the Caro Learning Center in Caro, Michigan, before killing himself.
On April 24, 2003, James Sheets, 14, killed Principal Eugene Segro of Red Lion Junior High School, Red Lion, Pa., before killing himself. On September 24, 2003, at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minnesota, two students were killed by John Jason McLaughlin, 15.
On March 21, 2005, at the Red Lake reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota, 16-year-old Jeffrey Weise killed his police sergeant grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend, then later drove his grandfather’s police vehicle to Red Lake Senior High School where, at 2:45 p.m. he began shooting, killed seven people on the school campus, including five students, one teacher, and an unarmed security guard, and wounded five others.
On November 8, 2005, in Jacksboro, Tennessee, a 15-year-old shot and killed an assistant principal at Campbell County High School, and seriously wounded two other administrators. On August 24, 2006, Christopher Williams, 27, shot two teachers and wounded another. Before going to the school, he had killed his ex-girlfriend’s mother.
On September 27, 2006, an adult male held six students hostage at Platte Canyon High School, Bailey, Colorado, then shot and killed Emily Keyes, 16, and himself. Two days later, on September 29, in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, a 15-year-old student shot and killed Weston School principal, John Klang.
On October 3, 2006, in Nickel Mines, Pa., a 32-year-old milk-truck driver, Carl Charles Roberts, entered the one-room West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot 10 schoolgirls, ranging in age from six to 13 years old, and then himself. Five of the girls and Roberts died. A movie has already been made of this chilling tragedy.
On January 3, 2007, Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in Henry Foss High School, Tacoma, Washington. On April 16, 2007, in Blacksburg, Virginia, a 23-year-old Virginia Tech Student, Cho Seung-Hui, killed two in a dorm, then killed 30 more two hours later in a classroom building. His suicide brought the death toll to 33, making that shooting rampage the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others were wounded.
On September 21, 2007, at Delaware State University, Dover, freshman Loyer D. Brandon shot and wounded two other freshmen students on the university campus. On October 10, 2007, 14-year-old Asa H. Coon shot and injured two students and two teachers before killing himself at Cleveland High School, Cleveland, Ohio.
On February 8, 2008, a nursing student at Louisiana Technical College, in Baton Rouge, shot and killed two women and then herself in a classroom. Three days later, in Memphis, Tennessee, a 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School shot and wounded a classmate in gym class. A day later, on February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, a 14-year-old boy shot a student at E. O. Green Junior High School causing the 15-year-old victim to become brain dead. Two days later, on February 14, a gunman killed five students, wounded 17 others, and then killed himself when he opened fire on a classroom at Northern Illinois University.
On November 12, 2008, a 15-year-old female student was shot and killed by a classmate at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
On February 5, 2010, at the Discovery Middle School in Madison, Alabama, a ninth grader was shot by another student during a class change. The boy pulled out a gun and shot Todd Brown in the head while walking in the hallway. On February 12, at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Amy Bishop, a biology professor, shot her colleagues, killing three and wounding three others.
On January 5, 2011, in Omaha, Nebraska, two people were killed and two more injured in a shooting at Millard South High School. Shortly after being suspended from school, the shooter returned and shot the assistant principal, principal, and the school nurse. The shooter then left campus and took his own life. On that same day, in Houston, Texas, two gunmen opened fire during a Worthing High School powder-puff football game. One former student died, and five others were wounded.
On May 10, 2011, in San Jose, California, three people were killed at San Jose State University. Two former students were found dead on the fifth floor of the garage. A third, the suspected shooter, died later at the hospital. On December 8, 2011, at Blacksburg, Virginia, a Virginia Tech police officer was shot and killed by a 22-year-old student from Radford University on Virginia Tech’s campus.
On February 10, 2012, in Walpole, New Hampshire, a 14-year-old student shot himself in front of seventy fellow students. Seven days later, at Chardon High School, in Chardon, Ohio, a former student opened fire, killing three students.
Yet Norway has a higher ownership of guns per head of population. Switzerland is similar, in that it has always had a citizens’ army. Yet in these countries you don’t have these repeated outbreaks of mass murder. Certainly in Norway there was the murderous rampage of Andres Breivik, the Norwegian fascist and Zionist. But his motives were clear, to kill as many young, left-wing people as possible. And what Breivik did was all but approved by people like ex-Fox News mouthpiece, Glenn Beck, who called those who died ‘Hitler Youth’ for supporting the Palestinians.
The fact is that the 20 children who died in Connecticut are no different from the hundreds of Afghan children, Palestinian children and others who die, daily, because of US drones and missiles and other weapons of murder and mayhem. A violent society begets violence and the children of Newtown are the price that the United States pays for its approval, support and use of violence beyond its border.
Tony Greenstein