in lancaster county, pennsylvania, a milk truck driver entered a one-room amish school, let the male students, a pregnant woman and several women with infant children leave before lining the female students up in front of the blackboard, tying their feet together and shooting them in the head execution-style.

In las vegas, two schools were locked down after at teenager was seen at a high school with a gun.

last week, a principal was shot in wisconsin and a 15-year-old now is charged with his murder, and in colorado, a man held six girls hostage before shooting one and himself.

the news makes me sick these days. i’m a news reporter, so i peruse state and national news sites throughout the day, and i never thought the day would come when students wouldn’t be safe at school. now, don’t get me wrong, i know there have been school shootings in the past, such as the one at columbine high school, but i can’t remember so many happening in such a short period of time. if i was a mother, i don’t know that i would want my child to attend a school. i might choose to home school him or her. i can’t imagine what the parents of the children involved in these shootings are going through.

instinctively, i wonder what could go through the mind of a person to make them enter a school and shoot innocent students and adults. i can’t understand that mentality. the man in pennsylvania, according to his wife, was trying to get revenge for something that occurred 20 years ago. what in the world could have happened to make him execute those young students? it just boggles my mind.

i like to think that nothing like that would happen here, in my small town. i hope not. but, i’m sure none of these children’s parents thought shootings would occur at their schools. i went to high school and college in an adventist town we affectionately call “happy valley.” the worst thing that ever happened at my high school was the administration not allowing a student to graduate because she was caught with drugs during a search. we lived in our little bubble. we weren’t oblivious to the events going on across the country; we just knew nothing like that would ever happen in our little world.

i no longer live in “happy valley.” i’ve seen several police reports at work of crimes occurring in the apartment complex where i live. there have been burglaries and even a man attacked as he tried to unlock his apartment door. it scares me. i know i can’t live forever in an area like “happy valley,” but i should be able to feel safe.