A pattern in rural school shootings: girls as targets

Monday's deadly shooting in Nickel Mines, Pa., was the fourth such incident in five weeks.

By Gail Russell Chaddock and Mark Clayton | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

NICKEL MINES, PA., AND BOSTON – The scene Monday at the buff-colored, one-room schoolhouse in the gentle heart of Amish country was wrenching, but also distressingly familiar.

One of four fatal school shootings to beset rural America in just over a month, the rampage that killed five young girls raises anew a host of old concerns - about campus security in countryside settings, access to guns by unstable individuals, and "copycat" violence advanced by media attention.

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