A Message from James Moore

Webmaster's note: Below is an email from Mr. James Moore who discovered my site after the Virginia Tech Massacre. He posted the following message on his blog and gave me permission to post his words on my site with his name. I do hope you follow his advice.

From: James Moore, Thursday, April 19, 2007 @ 10:26 PM

School Violence is not Uncommon

When I first heard the news report about Virginia Tech I thought, “Oh no. Not another Columbine.” I used the internet to do a little research hoping that I could figure out what is going on.

I knew from previous research that at age 25 the last part of the human brain develops. This part lets us evaluate the future consequences of your actions. (This is probably where the phrase ‘mature adult’ came from.) Maybe this was the underlining cause. Maybe this would lead to some way of stopping the problem. There seemed to be more drugs available for the younger generations. Some of these drugs are associated with violence. Was this the problem? Were guns the problem?

First, not all acts of violence involve guns. When the US went into Iraq , they knew that guns were part of the Iraqi culture. So they let the Iraqis keep their guns. Statistics show that IED’s, or Improvised Explosive Devices, are much more common and effective than guns. Besides, you can get bomb instructions off the Internet.

Were knifes the problem or weapon of choice? I discovered that violence comes in many forms. It can involve guns and/or knives. Violence can also involve verbal, sexual, alcohol, and drug related abuses. Why is the younger generation so violent? After viewing this web site, I realized how naive I was. The home page starts out with a case of school violence in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1595. That is correct, 1595, the 16^th century. Fortunately, the site did not record every case since then. This case illustrates that school violence has been around for a long time. I printed the 10 pages from the chart section and came up with the following statistics: If you are the instigator, you are 7 times more likely to be male. You are 15 years old high school student living in the state of New York. You are most violent on a Wednesday during the month of March.

Columbine and Virginia Tech were tragedies. No question about it. However, the worse was on 2004 in North Ossetia, Russia where 366 were killed and 704 were wounded. It is hard to say just how accurate the statistics are on this web site. It does include foreign countries. But, how can any one guarantee that all incidences are reported? Nevertheless, assuming that the information is accurate, 78% of the incidences occur in the US . If you are involved in an incident, you have a 39% chance of being killed and a 40% of being wounded. You would not want to be involved; but your chances of being killed or wounded are better than if you live in a foreign country.

The important thing is that something can be done. In human society, this is one of those cycles that can be minimized and possibly stopped. Go to the web site. Click on the phrase “It’s Not Always About the Gun.” (Click here to go to the page.) Read all the sections like ‘Bully Free’ and ‘Guidelines for Schools.’ Read them all. Then do something.

By: James Lee Moore

Never Forget Always Remember