School killings old, old

Think American school shootings, stabbings, and general violence leading to death are a modern phenom? Think again.

Not counting Indian “warrior” raids on schools, first recorded in 1764, the first recorded one was in 1871, in La Grange County, Indiana. There were just six more in the Nineteenth Century.

Then things really picked up. The Bloody Twentieth Century recorded twenty-three before World War II. Fourteen more by 1960. Then a hundred and thirty-two before the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, CO, in April, 1999.

Followed by  a hundred and twenty-six more by Jan. 22 of this year. Whew.

So these things really aren’t new, except in the sense of clothing fashions, i.e. what’s old is new again.