Six-year-old children should be learning to read, identify new words by matching letters to sounds, count to 100, and do basic addition and subtraction. But now we have a 6-year-old who allegedly shot his teacher in Newport News, Virginia.
Unfortunately, school shootings are not uncommon. There have been more than 1,300 school shootings in the U.S. since 1970, according to data from the government-sponsored Homeland Security Digital Library. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 in Colorado, where two teens killed 13 people, there have been well over 500 school shootings. The shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May, where 19 children and two adults were killed, was the most recent school massacre to shock the nation.
Sadly, we are growing too accustomed to school shootings, which speaks to the need for change in our system. However, the news of a 6-year-old allegedly shooting his teacher did shock us all. Of all the shootings at schools, none of the offenders has been this young.
