1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:06,960 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, 2 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,080 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode from 3 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:13,800 Speaker 1: the podcast archives. This is one that we originally ran 4 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,160 Speaker 1: in March in the way of the shooting at Marjorie 5 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:20,400 Speaker 1: Stoneman Douglas High School. It's about the prevalence of mass 6 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: shootings in schools and what some solutions might be. It's 7 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:29,160 Speaker 1: still relevant today, so I wanted to air it again. Hi, 8 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,320 Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum Here, I've got a serious one 9 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:35,000 Speaker 1: for you today. We're talking about mass shootings in the 10 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:37,080 Speaker 1: United States and why they seem to be happening so 11 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 1: frequently at schools. We're not getting graphic, but listener discretion 12 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:45,159 Speaker 1: is advised. On Valentine's Day this year, seventeen people, including 13 00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:47,880 Speaker 1: students and teachers, were killed by a nineteen year old 14 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,519 Speaker 1: former student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 15 00:00:52,080 --> 00:00:54,440 Speaker 1: This was the tenth mass school shooting in the United 16 00:00:54,480 --> 00:00:57,280 Speaker 1: States in the past five years. A mass shooting is 17 00:00:57,320 --> 00:00:59,520 Speaker 1: generally defined as one where at least four people are 18 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:03,360 Speaker 1: killed in single incident, and once again Americans are left 19 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:07,679 Speaker 1: asking ourselves why lost in the noisy debate over gun 20 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:12,440 Speaker 1: control and mental health screening is another confounding question, why schools. 21 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:15,560 Speaker 1: Why does so many troubled young men choose schools as 22 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:18,240 Speaker 1: the place to act out their violent and vengeful fantasies, 23 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:21,319 Speaker 1: And what, if anything, could schools do to avoid becoming 24 00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:25,720 Speaker 1: the next Columbine Sandy Hook or Stoneman Douglas. We spoke 25 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:29,080 Speaker 1: with Brian Warnick, a professor of educational ethics and policy 26 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:31,759 Speaker 1: at the Ohio State University who co authored a paper 27 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:35,440 Speaker 1: on the meaning and motivations behind targeted school shootings. Even 28 00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:38,360 Speaker 1: though many associate gun violence in America with poor inner 29 00:01:38,360 --> 00:01:41,880 Speaker 1: city communities, mass school shootings almost always occur in upper 30 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:46,080 Speaker 1: middle class, suburban schools. That's where the status tournament takes place, 31 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:49,800 Speaker 1: explains Warnick. He said, suburban schools do a lot of 32 00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 1: things to select winners and losers in ways that go 33 00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:56,120 Speaker 1: beyond academics. Think the adelation of athletics and the crowning 34 00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:59,280 Speaker 1: of homecoming kings and queens. He continued, the way we 35 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:01,880 Speaker 1: see it, when schools set themselves up as judges in 36 00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:05,360 Speaker 1: the social status tournament, the resentment will sometimes be directed 37 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,480 Speaker 1: against the school itself. He notes that in the book 38 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: Hollywood goes to the movies. Sociologist and author Robert Bulman 39 00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:15,240 Speaker 1: says that while Hollywood films set in urban schools focus 40 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:18,959 Speaker 1: on heroic teachers and academic achievement, films set in suburban 41 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 1: settings focus on student journeys of self discovery in the 42 00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:25,160 Speaker 1: same vein many suburban school shooters see what they are 43 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,840 Speaker 1: doing is acts of self expression. Warnick said. There's a 44 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,080 Speaker 1: different value system at play in suburban schools. It's called 45 00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:35,960 Speaker 1: expressive individualism. What we see in movies and TV is 46 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,239 Speaker 1: students engaged in this process of self discovery, breaking through 47 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:43,639 Speaker 1: norms of the school, breaking through social cliques. Self discovery 48 00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:47,320 Speaker 1: and individual expression aren't necessarily bad things, says Warnic, But 49 00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:50,160 Speaker 1: for certain troubled young men who harbor deep resentment of 50 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:52,760 Speaker 1: the system that rejected them, there's no better way to 51 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,000 Speaker 1: express their true, tortured selves than through a dramatic act 52 00:02:56,080 --> 00:02:59,000 Speaker 1: of violence. And the higher the body count, the more 53 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:03,079 Speaker 1: powerful the message be. We also spoke with Cheryl Johnson, 54 00:03:03,200 --> 00:03:06,880 Speaker 1: a professor of criminal justice at Cincinnati's Xavier University, where 55 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:10,200 Speaker 1: she has studied whether increased security measures, namely armed guards 56 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:13,480 Speaker 1: on campus, locked down buildings, and metal detectors, are an 57 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:17,200 Speaker 1: effective means of preventing school shootings. She found that although 58 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:20,160 Speaker 1: beefed up security made to ter overall crime and violent 59 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 1: crime in schools, there's little evidence to show that those 60 00:03:22,760 --> 00:03:26,400 Speaker 1: measures alone can thwart a mass shooting. First, school shootings 61 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:29,400 Speaker 1: are just too statistically rare to gauge the efficacy of 62 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,560 Speaker 1: different security methods, and second, there's anecdotal evidence that even 63 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:37,200 Speaker 1: the best security methods can fail. There were armed school 64 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,280 Speaker 1: guards a Columbine, the Sandy Hook shooters shot through glass 65 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:43,520 Speaker 1: panes to bypass locked doors, and in two thousand five, 66 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:46,440 Speaker 1: a student in Red Lake, Minnesota, passed through his school's 67 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: metal detector before killing an unarmed guard who tried to 68 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:53,040 Speaker 1: stop him, along with seven other people, including himself. There's 69 00:03:53,080 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 1: also concerned that militarizing schools with armed guards and security 70 00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:59,160 Speaker 1: checkpoints contributes to the idea that the school is an 71 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:04,000 Speaker 1: unsafe place where violence is almost expected. Johnson's seventeen paper, 72 00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:08,480 Speaker 1: obviously written before the February Parkland incident, pointed out that 73 00:04:08,520 --> 00:04:11,080 Speaker 1: the raw number of homicides at U schools each year 74 00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:15,600 Speaker 1: since Columbine in nine had actually decreased or remained stable 75 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,440 Speaker 1: over the years. One of the best ways to prevent 76 00:04:18,440 --> 00:04:21,960 Speaker 1: school shootings, both Johnson and Warnick agree is to encourage 77 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:24,800 Speaker 1: people to speak up when they suspect that a classmate, friend, 78 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,599 Speaker 1: or family member is contemplating something terrible. A day before 79 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,560 Speaker 1: the Parkland shooting, a grandmother in Washington State called nine 80 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:34,480 Speaker 1: one when she found her eighteen year old grandson's handwritten 81 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:39,640 Speaker 1: plans for a gruesome school attack involving homemade explosives. Johnson said, 82 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,880 Speaker 1: that's a school shooting we're not talking about today, citing 83 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:45,359 Speaker 1: a report from the Secret Service and the Department of 84 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:48,800 Speaker 1: Education that a percent of school shootings at least one 85 00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:51,920 Speaker 1: other person knew about the plans. In fifty nine percent, 86 00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:55,040 Speaker 1: two or more people had information about the attacks before 87 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:59,440 Speaker 1: they occurred. Warnick said, usually when school shootings are prevented, 88 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:02,159 Speaker 1: it's when students trust the teachers enough to share that 89 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:05,240 Speaker 1: information with them. If we could really build up schools 90 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:07,680 Speaker 1: as places of trust where children feel like they have 91 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:10,760 Speaker 1: adults who care about them, that would facilitate the communication 92 00:05:10,839 --> 00:05:14,640 Speaker 1: that's been proven to prevent school shootings. Of course, speaking 93 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:17,400 Speaker 1: up hasn't always been fool proof. We now know that 94 00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,080 Speaker 1: the FBI received a tip about the Parkland shooter dating 95 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,040 Speaker 1: back to September seventeen for making disturbing comments on YouTube, 96 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:27,479 Speaker 1: but he was never detained or even questioned. A second 97 00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:31,480 Speaker 1: person contacted the FBI on January five to report their 98 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: concerns and to warn them about the shooters guns and 99 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,200 Speaker 1: desire to kill, but the FBI has admitted that the 100 00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:41,520 Speaker 1: proper protocols to follow up were left un followed. Instead 101 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:45,840 Speaker 1: of school districts spending money on expensive and unproven security solutions, 102 00:05:45,880 --> 00:05:49,320 Speaker 1: Brian Warnick suggests they hire more teachers and counselors to 103 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:53,400 Speaker 1: shrink class sizes and encourage more meaningful interactions between staff 104 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:56,720 Speaker 1: and struggling students. He'd also like to see more creative 105 00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:00,000 Speaker 1: outlets like art, literature, and music classes, which often get 106 00:06:00,120 --> 00:06:10,800 Speaker 1: from type budgets for safe individual expression. Today's episode is 107 00:06:10,839 --> 00:06:13,640 Speaker 1: based on the article why do mass shootings keep Happening 108 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,240 Speaker 1: in US Schools? On how stuff Works dot Com written 109 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:18,800 Speaker 1: by Dave Rus. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart 110 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:21,000 Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and 111 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,039 Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my 112 00:06:24,080 --> 00:06:27,000 Speaker 1: heart Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 113 00:06:27,080 --> 00:06:28,919 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.