Another school shooting, this time in Brazil.

[Archae]

I just saw a video from ABC's "Good Morning America," where a guy, a loner, went on a rampage in Brazil in a middle school.

12 kids were killed.

So it isn't just the US where these things happen.

[Auntie Bush]

1. I guess misery loves company...unfortunately.

[southernyankeebelle]

2. But I sure we are teaching them how to do it.

[ailsagirl]

3. It happened in Scotland

In Dunblane in 1996 (I believe). Sixteen young students died. What is happening to our world?

[Archae]

4. Nothing.

The worst school massacre happened in 1927.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

The big difference is back then people heard about these things days, even weeks later. If at all.

Nowadays we see these things practically (and sometimes literally) as they happen.

[ailsagirl]

6. Yes, I've read about that one

I've also read in the book "Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion from Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond" that workplace shootings have become so commonplace that rarely are they even nationally reported, unless the fatalities are numerous. I also remember when the Clutter family was murdered in Kansas in 1959 that it made headlines all over the country. Today, let's face it, it would make barely a ripple. That says a lot.

[Archae]

8. Once again it's news media that makes the difference.

Especially the 24/7 tabloid-style news programs, that will interview the shooter's wife's hairdresser for yet more "filler" for the story.

[Yo_Mama]

5. Germany, 2002 & 2009

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnenden_school_shooting


Mental illness knows no geographic boundaries.

[ailsagirl]

7. Apparently not

But the tricky question (among many) is WHY have they increased so much in the last 30-odd years?

[Yo_Mama]

9. The population's increased massively

It's not as if there were not earlier incidents of violence, but consider how rare an event these are.

In 1850 world population was about 1.2 billion, now it's over 7 billion. And of course we hear about more of these incidents, because of modern connections, so it seems to us that the real rate is increasing faster than it is.

The very phrase "running amok" passed into western culture from the British colonial age due to such incidents:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_amok

Is there any culture which doesn't have a history of such incidents? It's not weapons-related (fire has sometimes been used) e.g. The Koeln attack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_school_massacre

It's not school-related, really, it's just that to us those seem the most shocking so we think about them the most.

If you google rampage killers, you just start to wonder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers

For some of these people, the motives seem to be a deep sense of grievance against the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather

But many of them are just insane:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Unruh

At one point in Europe, train derailments were the fashion - there were more incidents than this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvestre_Matuschka