The USA is the World's Most Violent Industrialized Country when it Comes to Mass Shootings

The United States is now the most violent country in the industrialized world when it comes to school shootings and mass shootings. 2007 has been particularly bad for shootings in the USA and the year hasn't ended yet. This week alone, there has been a shooting at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska with 9 people dying, and two church shootings in Colorado killing at least five people. The Virginia Tech massacre in April, 2007, was the deadliest school shooting in US history, killing 32 people. Columbine High School is now the most famous high school in the world - but for all the wrong reasons. While violent crime overall has declined in the US in recent years, mass shootings are on the rise.

Almost every month in the US there is a mass shooting and sometimes, like this month, more than one. Compared to the rest of the world, which saw only one school shooting this year, at a school in Finland, the United States has had four. I am an American teacher in Thailand, and one of the reasons I left the United States is that I wouldn't teach in the United States again, due to the violence, the drugs, the gangs and the disrespect of teachers. In Thailand, and in most other countries in Asia, this sorry state of affairs just doesn't exist. Why is this?

Being a family-oriented society definitely seems to have something to do with the lack of school shootings. People in the United States talk about it being a family-oriented society but I never really saw that. Instead I saw a society of people who work all the time so they can buy the newest flashy car, the latest electronic gadgets, or the biggest house. I also saw many people who lived thousands of miles from their families, often on the other side of the country. Many of them saw their families only once a year and spoke to them on the phone only a few times a year. Coming from a family where we call each other four or five times a week no matter where we are, I just never understood that.