More School Shootings To Come

Started by TehBorken, Oct 02 06 06:42

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TehBorken

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[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"][h3]School shootings: malignant, contagious social meme?
[/h3]On September 14,  Canadian [a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2006/09/14/montreal_gunmans_web.html"]Kimveer Gill[/a] attacked. He was said to have had a fondness for the Columbine shooters (he certainly [a href="http://www.columbinegame.com/"]loved the game[/a]). A [a href="http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,20501824-5005361,00.html"]number[/a] of [a href="http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/61-09172006-713912.html"]similarly[/a] of [a href="http://680news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20060918_111515_3280"]deadly[/a] [a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=4573569"]incidents[/a] followed, right up to [a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/02/amish.shooting/"]today's death spree at an Amish school[/a] in Pennsylvania. Seems like a lot in a short period of time. Coincidence, or social phenomenon?   Coleman is a suicide prevention and school violence                          researcher and consultant, and  author of [a href="http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Clusters-Loren-Coleman/dp/0571129838/sr=1-1/qid=1159827617/ref=sr_1_1/002-5000304-3688049?ie=UTF8&s=books"]Suicide Cluster[/a] (1987) and [a href="http://www.amazon.com/Copycat-Effect-Popular-Tomorrows-Headlines/dp/0743482239/sr=1-1/qid=1159827757/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5000304-3688049?ie=UTF8&s=books"]The Copycat                          Effect[/a] (2004). He writes:                           [/p][blockquote]Here is what I am finding: * Most contemporary school shootings tend                             to occur primarily during two periods of the                             school year - at the beginning (late Aug                             through October) and near the the end of the                             academic year (March-April).  [/p] * Copycats follow a regular temporal                             pattern that repeats - these could be after                             a primary media event in a day, a week, two                            weeks, a month, a year, ten years -                             vulnerable humans have internal media                             clocks.  [/p] * Copycats imitate the previous violent                             attacks, oftentimes down to specific details                             as that mirror the previous specifics of the                             shooter, the victims, and the methods.   [/p] * "Celebrity" events have a far-reaching                             impact and modeling effect -- so, of course,                             Columbine serves as a dark cloud over many                             school shootings. [/p]                         One of the silliest things I have heard from                          cable news in the last several days during                          mid-September 2006, is that "these school                         shootings aren't like the other school                          shootings." This is short-sighted, and factually                          untrue.[/p]                         Before the current model (post-1996) in which a                          member of the student body would go into their                          own school and kill fellow students, the pattern                          was one of outsiders -- often adults -- going into schools and killing students. In my book, I                          discuss some of the more infamous cases (...).                         Every year is different, and a fresh view must                          be considered based upon observations that are                          right in front of our eyes. What I do at the                          beginning of a new school year is to see if                          there is an emerging pattern that will be the                          re-worked "copycat" model for the new school                          year. To me, it was and is obvious where we were                          going this year.
                         
                         Here's what I see: a mix of outsiders invading                          school, and students making plans too (...)[/p][/blockquote]  [a href="http://copycateffect.com/"]Link[/a] to the website for Coleman's "Copycat Effect" book, with the full text of this essay. [a href="http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/predicted-more-school-shootings.html"]Here's a related post on his blog[/a], in which he predicts more shootings in October as the social contagion spreads during this present cycle.      
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

weird al

Sounds like Coleman's on to something here. I just hope, if it doesn't come to pass as he predicts, he's not too heavily invested into proving his thesis.