<font color="silver">Just to give you a better idea of what has been progressing since 1996.....

Feb. 2, 1996
Moses Lake, Wash. 2 students and 1 teacher killed, 1 other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.

Feb. 19, 1997
Bethel, Alaska Principal and 1 student killed, 2 others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.

Oct. 1, 1997
Pearl, Miss. 2 students killed and 7 wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.

Dec. 1, 1997
West Paducah, Ky. 3 students killed, 5 wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.

Dec. 15, 1997
Stamps, Ark. 2 students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot.

March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Ark. 4 students and 1 teacher killed, 10 others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods.

April 24, 1998
Edinboro, Pa. 1 teacher, John Gillette, killed, 2 students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.

May 19, 1998
Fayetteville, Tenn. 1 student killed in the parking lot at Lincoln County High School 3 days before he was to graduate. The victim was dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18-year-old honor student Jacob Davis.

May 21, 1998
Springfield, Ore. 2 students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home.

June 15, 1998
Richmond, Va. 1 teacher and 1 guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway.

April 20, 1999
Littleton, Colo. 14 students (including killers) and 1 teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.

April 28, 1999
Taber, Alberta, Canada 1 student killed, 1 wounded at W. R. Myers High School in first fatal high school shooting in Canada in 20 years. The suspect, a 14-year-old boy, had dropped out of school after he was severely ostracized by his classmates.

May 20, 1999
Conyers, Ga. 6 students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend.

Nov. 19, 1999
Deming, N.M. Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shoots and kills Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming Middle School.

Dec. 6, 1999
Fort Gibson, Okla. 4 students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13, opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.

February 29, 2000
Mount Morris Township, Mich. 6-year-old Kayla Rolland shot dead at Buell Elementary School near Flint, Mich. The assailant is identified as a 6-year-old boy with a .32-caliber handgun.

May 26, 2000
Lake Worth, Fla. 1 teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol on the last day of classes.

March 5, 2001
Santee, Calif. Charles Andrew Williams, 15, kills 2 and wounds 13, after firing from a bathroom at Santana High School.

March 7, 2001
Williamsport, Pa. Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria of Bishop Neumann High School; she was depressed and frequently teased. </font>

<font color="lime">Source of information - www.cnn.com</font>

That's terrible...
Its good that you brought this to our attention TAOWolf, some people (including myself) didn't truly understand how bad the problem was until now.
What exactly is the American government doing about all this?

what can they do?outlaw insanity?

I agree, actually. Thank God that I'm not a politician who has to prevent such horrors as these, because I don't think I could deal with it. :( This is just such an incredibly difficult and COMPLEX thing to deal with - it isn't just a matter of a bunch of gun laws or a Bible class once a week :( There is something profoundly *twisted* and wrong with a lot of people's sense of morality... I think we must do everything we can to prevent these things from happening, but I'm under no delusions that it will be easy.

They can try to address the problems at hand - encourage therapy, counseling, and school meetings which address the issue. They can also encourage parents to be more aware of the mindset and/or activities of their children.

To add to that, the government could also see to it that guns are more difficult to come by, by possibly tightening and enforcing stiffer penalties for people who leave their guns lying around.

Personally I think it's because society is screwed up and intolerant. I know that I myself have a lot of pent up rage because of the way that Danish society is, I'm different in my home country and I am more or less an outcast.

I believe that the people who become outcasts or are forced to be someone they're not in order to be accepted are the people that do these things.

Of course, tighter gun laws to ensure that guns would be harder to come by wouldn't hurt either.

So what is society supposed to do? You'll always get people that don't fit in but it doesn't excuse killing people

Of course - I am not saying there's nothing we can do - in fact I think there are a lot of things we *should* do about this problem.
But when stuff like this happens, it just gets to me - it's like a cancer ingrained in our society - I just cannot grasp or comprehend the fact that there are young people who can kill people in cold blood like this. It's just one of the most disturbing phenomena I can think of :(

Of course it doesn't. But if society was tolerant and didn't make these people outcasts then there would probably be less killings.... At least that's my opinion.

make them outcasts? in what respect?

if somebody is expelled from school it's for a good reason.

if somebody is bullied or teased at school, well, kids have been doing that since schools BEGAN!!! Hell, ,I was bullied at school. I trained up, kicked the crap out of them in return, but I have never decided "ooh, I shall go back to school and kill the teachers that sided with the bullies"

that takes another incentive entirely