According to Jonathon Fast, Ph.D (2008), the types of shootings that take place in a school setting should actually be labeled as "school rampage shootings." By definition, a school rampage shooting is an act of terrorism without an ideological core. According to Fast (2008), this specific type of violence is especially devastating because they "throw people's lives out of kilter and convince them that the world is a menacing place. They crush the spirit of the community and generate waves of despair across the nation. Fortunately, due to the recent upsurge of school rampage shootings, as well as other forms of school violence in recent years, an overabundance of importance has been placed on putting an end to this issue.
Fast (2008) describes the steps of interfering in and managing these acts as three individual steps: prevention, intervention, and postvention. Obviously, prevention is the step that is most questioned by the public. What exactly is being done to keep school violence at bay? Intervention deals with minimizing the effects of violence when a violent act is already transpiring. Postvention has to do with how to assist the survivors of violence, when and if they are able to occur. .
Dr. Fast speaks extensively about the benefits of the prevention step. This step revolves completely around putting a stop to school rampage shootings before they ever begin. The book discusses how educators and administrators in the school environment sometimes receive a very specific training, known as "threat assessment protocol, that can help them identify students who present a potential danger to themselves or others. Clearly, this would be the most positive scenario when it comes to school violence. Unfortunately, this isn't always how the situation plays out. On multiple occasions in our nation's recent history, shooters haven't been able to be identified and stopped before the situation develops.