The Shooting Game

I highly recommend this book for anyone attempting to get to the bottom of why there continues to be so many school shootings! The author has obviously spent a tremendous amount of time not only researching this subject and talking to anyone and everyone who had anything to do with it, but also thinking about the many underlying causes and from different angles, and then researching those too! So many facts (and possibilites) are brought to light in this very educational book. It's not just a book about "Kip". It digs deep, and compares a large variety of shootings. I actually live by Thurston, and have children that attend there now, (as well as kids that previously attended and more that will attend), and although this type of tragedy can happen anywhere on earth (as the author points out that it has), it does hit a bit closer to home for me. This is not a short book, and I couldn't put it down for 3 days until I finished it! And then I wanted to re-read it! This was a very thought-provoking book, packed with many issues I never took into account. Being a parent, it made me really look at how children are raised, things to be aware of, and things that can make a huge impact on a child that I had never taken into consideration. I can't say enough positive things about this book, on a such a negative topic with such a negative impact on our society today.

Joseph Lieberman's book "The Shooting Game - The Making of School Shooters" examines all school shooting right up until this summer, but we still need this book because the violence continues on a weekly basis. What I like about this book is that it is both an overview of the entire 30-year school shooting phenomenon and a detailed examination of a single amazing case in Oregon. I just finished reading this book and it is an excellent read, a compelling, informative read that delves into the missed signs of the world's most notorious school shootings... signs that are easy to read... signs that we need to see to protect our students and teachers from the anguish of experiencing another school shooting. I highly recommend it.

Joe Lieberman has written a book that involves the reader in the unraveling of a mystery. Namely, why Kip Kinkel (and other shooters) chose this course of action. Beginning with the specifics of what actually happened during one key school massacre, the author then moves to the reasons behind this tragic, brutal incident; to how it could have been prevented; to the effects it had on others; and finally, to the larger picture of why so many school shootings took place at this particular time, in this particular cultural climate. Along the way, he also adds insights into how the thought processes of school shooters reflect those of terrorists, both domestic and foreign, and other mass murderers. What our children are doing in high schools and middle schools today predicts what they will be doing as adults in our communities and our workplaces in the years to come. In the 1990s, there was a spike in the number of school shootings. From around 2000, there has been an increase in the number of college shooting incidents as that generation has grown older; simultaneously, workplace shootings have shown no tendency to subside. In this violent new era, it has never been more important to understand the roots of such destructiveness. If our civilization is going to survive we must study and master the violence that overtakes some of our children, and more broadly, the violence within society itself. And that is exactly what this book is all about. Lieberman used his unique perspective to comprehend how and why American values and principles altered during his long years as an expatriate, and offers unconventional insights as a teacher and journalist with an international viewpoint, if anyone is willing to listen. And we must listen. Our future and our survival depend upon it. Maybe we all thought the monster had been laid to rest in the late 90s, but in fact, it was only sleeping. The horror we call school shooting returned again with a vengeance in Sept. and Oct. of 2006. And even back on March 21, 2005, a student named Jeff Weise went on a killing spree at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, killing nine people and then himself. It was the nation's worst school shooting since the Columbine attack in 1999, but even Columbine could not compare with the April 26, 2002 massacre of seventeen people at a school in Erfurt, Germany. And there were others, not just shootings, but dozens of arrests since Columbine of students who admired the bloodshed and made very explicit plans to emulate it. Fortunately, most of these post-1999 incidents were prevented, but a few were not. The fact is, bigger headlines such as 9-11 and the Iraq war, drove these events off the front page and away from the top TV news spots, which many experts believe in itself contributed to less frequent occurrences. Still, while the public perception may have been that the phenomenon of school shooting was behind us, the problem quietly went on. Although schoo

It's a mistake to think problems like this are in the past just because they are not headlines until the worst case scenario reoccurs. This book tells it like it is, goes behind the scenes, gives us the understanding that has been lacking as to WHY some young people choose this path of destruction. Gotta read it!!

A book like this, which is well written and well researched, is sure to spark controversy. It names the names of those who fell down on the job of protecting the community and that is sure to ruffle some feathers. As a crime researcher myself, I fact-checked some of the unbelievable things I read and discovered Lieberman was completely accurate on every score. And that can be dangerous. It means there will be a guilty few who will do everything they can to prevent the public from reading this. Lets see what comes out when the dust settles. Meanwhile, it gets my highest recommendation for giving us the facts behind this entire phenomenon of school shooting, and not a moment too soon.