(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
(AgapePress) – Less than three weeks after two students were shot and killed at a high school near San Diego, another shooting at a school in the same district left five people injured. The shooter — a senior at the school — was armed with a shotgun and handgun. He himself was shot during an ensuing gun battle with a campus officer.
The site of this latest school shooting was Granite Hills High School in El Cajon, California — a mere seven miles from the March 5 shooting at Santana High School in Santee. Both schools are in the Grossmont Union High School District. Reports say the 18-year-old shooter, identified as Jason Hoffman, brought a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol from home. He opened fire yesterday afternoon, hitting at least three students and two teachers with shotgun pellets. One student said the gunman fired at least eight shots and reloaded during the shooting. Hoffman is reportedly recovering today from gunshot wounds to the jaw and buttocks, sustained during the exchange with the campus officer.
One of the school board members of Grossmont Union High School District is Rev. Gary Cass. He says everyone in the community is grateful no one was killed in yesterday's shooting, and that the faith community is rallying to help traumatized students and families by offering counseling and comfort at local churches.
Cultural Acceptance of Killing
As with previous school shootings, a lack of respect for life is being cited as a root cause of the violence. For example, Wendy Wright, spokesperson for Concerned Women for America, believes school shootings and other acts of violence perpetrated by teenagers are the result of an attitude that accepts killing. She asserts legalized abortion is the main factor in creating such an atmosphere.
“In order to bring safety back into our schools, in order to bring a sense of morality back to our culture, we need to bring a sense of humanity back to the unborn child,” Wright says. “Abortion completely ignores the fact that there is a God that we are accountable to, and that our actions do affect other people.”
Wright says government-sanctioned abortion has been a leading factor in establishing a “culture of death” in America, and that high school shooting incidents are encouraged by such an atmosphere.
