Books Not Bullets

A brief history of school shootings in the United States. Maybe you’ll detect a trend:

July 26, 1764 – Greencastle, Pennsylvania

Enoch Brown school massacre: Perhaps the earliest shooting to happen on school or college property, in what would become the United States, was the notorious Enoch Brown school massacre during the Pontiac’s War. Four Delaware (Lenape) American Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown and nine children (reports vary). Only two children survived. However, this incident may only incidentally be considered a school “shooting” because only the teacher was shot, while the other nine victims were killed with melee weapons.

Then nothing until….

November 12, 1840 – Charlottesville, Virginia

John Anthony Gardner Davis, a law professor at the University of Virginia, was shot by student Joseph Semmes, and died from his wound three days later

Then nothing until…

November 2, 1853 – Louisville, Kentucky

Student Mathews Flounoy Ward took a pistol to school, where he shot the schoolmaster William H.G. Butler as revenge for what Ward thought was excessive punishment of his brother the day before. Butler died, and Ward was acquitted.

August 16, 1856 – Florence, Alabama

The schoolmaster had a tame sparrow and had warned the students not to harm it, threatening death. One of the boys stepped on the bird and killed it; he was afraid to return to school but did so. After lessons, the master took the boy into a private room and strangled him to death. The boy’s father went to the school and shot the schoolmaster dead.

The 1860s

6 shootings – 8 deaths

1870s

7 shootings – 3 deaths

1880s

11 shootings – 2 deaths

1890s

8 shootings – 13 deaths

1900s

14 shootings – 13 deaths

1910s

19 shootings – 12 deaths

1920s

10 shootings – 5 deaths

1930s

9 shootings – 10 deaths

1940s

8 shootings – 11 deaths

1950s

17 shootings – 14 deaths

1960s

19 shootings – 44 deaths

Including:

August 1, 1966 – Austin, Texas

University of Texas massacre: 25-year-old engineering student, Charles Whitman, got onto the observation deck at the University of Texas-Austin, from where he killed seventeen people and wounded thirty-one during a 96-minute shooting rampage. He had earlier murdered his wife and mother at their homes

1970s

31 shootings – 38 deaths

1980s

42 shootings – 51 deaths

1990s

66 shootings – 94 deaths

Including:

April 20, 1999 – Littleton, Colordado

Columbine High School massacre: 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, students at Columbine High School, killed twelve students and one teacher. They injured 21 additional people, and three more were injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair committed suicide at the end of the massacre.

2000s

67 shootings – 101 deaths

2010-2014

92 shootings – 96 deaths

2015-Present

76 shootings – 86 deaths

Here are more pictures from the Des Moines March for Our Lives Rally:


March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

March for Our Lives - 2018

There still are a few more pictures from the March for Our Lives rally left. But not many.

6 thoughts on “Books Not Bullets”

  1. Good, because I can’t promise there will be any research that goes along with the last 2 posts on March for Our Lives.

    I think somebody should make a movie about the teacher that strangled a student for killing his pet sparrow.

  2. Okay. I lied. I just wrote next Thursday’s blog post and it is longer.

    I already have an idea for the final March for Our Lives post that includes a reference to masturbating to Guns & Ammo magazine.

  3. I feel like the sparrow story is too good NOT to explore. It would almost write itself, you’d think?

    I read that last line from your second comment to Jon and he didn’t immediately get the movie reference. I’m not entirely sure sometimes who I married.

  4. I have to confess that I wasn’t immediately going for a Se7en movie reference there. It must have been on a deep subconscious level.

    I think if I were to write the screenplay about the sparrow, I would make it into a tragedy where the school teacher was a hero of some kind. Like the sparrow was magical and could talk and then this evil little brat killed the sparrow.

    This drives the friendly, happy teacher completely off the edge. The screenplay goes from Doctor Doolittle to the bathroom scene of FULL METAL JACKET in a heartbeat.

    Then the final scene is basically suicide by dad.

    Right after the teacher gets shot, it reveals that the sparrow isn’t actually dead. He can resurrect himself, but it takes like 24 hours.

  5. I’m glad that Fincher lurks in the corners of your mind.

    So, like a phoenix sparrow? Which sort of goes along with the talking magical sparrow – that is adjacent logically for me, I get that. I can only assume that there’s some heated, harrowing dialogue by the dad, but the teacher is angst-ridden and tight-lipped about the situation in that final scene, so that the father never knows what a dick his kid was, thereby solidifying the suicide.

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