The aftermath of the Nashville school shooting left three students and three school workers dead. It has sparked the debate of why mass shooters target K-12 schools. Read ahead to know more.
The reason behind K-12 institutions being the target
Robin M. Kowalski recently published a study on mass shootings at K-12 schools and colleges. Kowalski is a professor of psychology at Clemson University. She and her group revealed the majority of attackers as “white, male, have a median age of 15, feel marginalized or bullied, and use the event to take their own lives. And they tend to come from inside the school community.” Moreover, the study revealed K-12 school attacks to be “night and day” from college shootings that occur due to interpersonal conflicts.
According to the study, people attacking schools are more like to be suffering from psychological problems, long or short-term rejection experiences such as breakups, and be fascinated with death, violence, and bugs. “the individuals behind the Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings, among others, had been diagnosed with an assortment of psychological conditions,” stated Kowalski in the report for Brookings Institutions. Moreover, according to Javed Ali, a former FBI, and Homeland Security official, most school shootings are “lone-wolf attacks.”
Nashville shooting: What was the motive?
So far, authorities have not determined the clear motive behind the mass shootings in the Nashville school. John Drake, the Chief of the Metro Nashville Police Department revealed they found writings and a detailed map of the institution left behind by Audrey Hale. The suspect entered the premises with three weapons, an AR-style rifle, a handgun, and an AR-style pistol. Hale previously attended the covenant school and Drake believes she might have had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”
“In Nashville, we know the person went to the school. So the question is: ‘What drew them back to that school decade or so later?’ We’ll never know the answer. Because that person is dead,” added Ali. “We need to raise the bar in terms of security to either deter people. From thinking about conducting attacks or minimizing the impacts of attacks when one does indeed occur. We need to make moves on school safety. Since we don’t seem to make progress on guns and mental health, or the combination of those two,” he stressed.
