Shooting Plot in Pennsylvania

A 14-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday night for plotting a shooting at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in northern Pennsylvania. He had an arsenal of guns in his house, including BB guns, air guns, and homemade grenades, and a 9-mm assault rifle. The assault rifle, which was bought for the boy by his mother, did not have any ammunition and Bruce L. Castor Jr., the Montgomery County district attorney, is still trying to decide if he should file charges against her for providing a minor with a gun. The boy was bullied at his middle school and his parents began home schooling him. He tried to get a friend of his to join him, but he told the police. This is only one example of a planned school shooting in recent years, but this attempt was fortunately stopped before anybody was killed.

Unfortunately violence has been an issue in our schools for many years. The worst example of school killings goes back 80 years ago, when on May 18, 1927, a man named Andrew Kehoe blew up a school in Bath, Michigan killing 42 children and teachers to protest increased taxes. He planned this over a long period of time and planted dynamite all over the basement of the school. About half of the dynamite exploded before the police began dismantling the dynamite bombs, preventing more deaths. Kehoe felt bullied by the town board because of the increased taxes.