As this thread, like so many others, has gone off topic to become yet another pathological process of wishful data interpretation attacking schools and the education system may I just comment on the film Bowling for Columbine which Lizzie informs me 'will happen' here

"In search of the reason for the United States's trigger mania, Moore discovers a culture of fear created by the government and the media. He says that fear leads Americans to arm themselves,to gun making-companies' advantage"

He attempts to contrast this with the attitude prevailing in Canada, where (he states) gun ownership is at similar levels to the U.S. but where he finds much less concern over crime and security.

This generating fear by the media is also discussed in detail in

"Choices in Preventing Youth Violence initiative", published by the Institute for Urban and Minority Education, Teachers College, Columbia University."

A Symbiosis of Sorts: School Violence and the Media

"The schools and the media sometimes seem locked in a symbiotic dance of death, making it difficult to think about school violence without taking note of its connection to the ever-present media."


This article looks at the very selective coverage of school-aged children killed away from schools

It argues that
"school violence in places where the media least expect it, in predominantly white suburbs and bucolic rural locales, has been a magnet to reporters.
There may be no end to the milking of what journalists regard as a "good" story. Newspapers and television outlets seek what is known in the trade as a "news peg"-a justification on which a story can be hung-even long after the event itself. Anniversaries of news events, including those involving school violence, become occasions for revisiting the story.
Officials at Columbine High School, keenly aware that this would happen on April 20, 2000, exactly one year after the shootings, even scheduled news briefings in the weeks leading up to the anniversary to help the reporters prepare their stories."

In looking at -

The effects of media coverage

It is observed that one report maintains that public fears about youth violence have been mounting even as evidence accumulates that such incidents have been decreasing but nonetheless the portion of Americans who believed that a shooting was likely in their neighborhood school rose from 49 percent to 70 percent during the same one-year period perhaps indicating that the media help stir fears by focusing on the relatively few fatal incidents inside school buildings.

Leading them to conclude that

"Perhaps the problem, in part, rests with the disproportionate amount of coverage that criminal incidents of any kind tend to receive when juveniles are involved, leading people to think that youth violence is ubiquitous."

May I just repeat what I said above -

"It is a sad fact that the tiny minority of children who do bring knives into school often claim it is a 'defensive' measure encouraged by the kind of exaggerated headlines and scare stories designed to sell newspapers and grab attention on forums!"

"all the boys had them, and he didn't feel safe without one"

Yes, generating fear by irresponsible, disturbingly highly charged emotional and inaccurate statements is the stuff of red top headlines and some posters.