RED LION, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A 14-year-old student armed with three revolvers killed a junior high school principal Thursday morning in a cafeteria packed with teens and then killed himself, authorities said.

Red Lion Area Junior High Principal Eugene Segro was pronounced dead at York Hospital, and the student died at the school, about 35 miles southeast of Harrisburg.

A motive was not immediately known, said Red Lion Borough Police Chief Walt Hughes.

"Anybody that does that has issues," he said at an afternoon news conference. "We're looking into that to try to find out what that was."

The principal was in the cafeteria, where students go before classes begin, Hughes said. "To our knowledge there was nothing going on when the incident went down," at 7:34 a.m., he said.

No students were injured, and no one else was hurt, he said.

Hughes said that according to information authorities have gathered so far, there's no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the shootings.

"We have no information that anything led up to this or that he spoke to someone else about it," the chief said, adding that police are reviewing video from school surveillance cameras to try to learn more about what happened.

"The school district is grieving the loss of our beloved junior high school principal, Dr. Segro, and the student involved," said Larry Macaluso, Red Lion Area superintendent. "We will continue to make plans to deal with the rest of our students, the staff and our parents and have them work through this."

Hughes said the student brought the revolvers from his home, where they had been locked in a gun safe. He said he doesn't foresee any criminal charges against the boy's parents relating to the weapons.

No metal detectors at school
The .44-caliber Magnum, .357-caliber Magnum and .22-caliber revolvers were legally registered in the student's step-father's name, the chief said.

York County Coroner Barry Bloss said the principal and student had only one bullet wound each. The principal was shot in the chest with a .44-caliber handgun, and the student died from gunshot to the head from a .22-caliber handgun, authorities said.

Police were on the scene within minutes of the incident. Students were evacuated immediately. Students from the junior high, a nearby high school and an elementary school were dismissed from school a few hours later. The junior high will be closed Friday.

Macaluso, asked about security at the school, said there are no metal detectors and students are not searched as they enter the building. "We have not had any security checks of students up until this time," he said.

"Our schools are locked when students are in the building in the morning and anyone entering the building must be identified and then report to the office," he said.

Counseling sessions were made available in the afternoon for junior high students and their parents in the senior high school auditorium. An informational meeting for parents was scheduled for Thursday evening.

"It's a tragedy. We're all sorry for it," Hughes said.

Segro was the school's principal for seven years.

"We're in shock. Total disbelief," Douglas Kilgore, school board vice president, said after the shooting.

Previous violence in school district
Myra Reichart with the Pennsylvania State Education Association -- the union that represents teachers in the school district -- said a crisis response team is being formed and will be sent to Red Lion. "We're always concerned when these kinds of things happen," she said.

The same school district was the site of a machete attack on a kindergarten class that wounded 11 children, the principal, and two teachers at Winterstown Elementary School in February 2001.

William Michael Stankewicz pleaded guilty to attempted murder and other charges. He said he was upset about his divorce and allegations that he molested his stepdaughters. Evidence showed he had had long-term mental problems. His ex-wife's children from a previous marriage had attended the school years before, local police said.

I have only just noticed this thread. What a stupid waste of life. Not that it will happen in the US but this strengthens the arguements about people not being allowed to have guns except when they belong to a sporting club. When guns are so numerous there are going to be tragedies just like this.

Sue,, I realize you and I live in two very different worlds. But Here, Gun control advocates will focus on any disaster to further their cause. The fact that someone commits a crime means they have criminal behavior. A means to carry out their desire will be found whether it be a gun, knife or bomb.

I agree with Jax - gun control here in the US would only encourage criminals as they would find a way to get guns, and be more likely to attack if they knew the majority of our population was not armed. You only have to consider Prohibition of the early part of the twentieth century. People still found plenty of ways to get alchohol. Gun control would work the same way.

What you wouldn't get are children taking guns to school and letting fly with them, children wouldn't have access - you are never going to stop criminals obtaining them, that is a different matter. Britain has just ended a month-long gun amnesty, people could hand in guns with no questions asked.

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From the BBC Online website - More than 20,000 weapons were handed into police before the final day of the nationwide scheme on Wednesday.

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That is a lot of guns from a country where there is supposed to be strict gun control.

The average child ought not have access to guns, even if the guns were locked up, if they hadn't been in the house he couldn't have got at it. OK, he might have stabbed the man instead, but there would probably not have been two fatalities.

I disagree with the comment about criminals being more likely to attack when they know the victims will not be armed, it doesn't work that way. Criminals are less likely to be armed as they know they will not be facing an armed victim - not the other way around. Don't forget that our police are only armed in extreme circumstances, most wouldn't know HOW to use a gun, it certainly doesn't encourage criminals to go armed. Our police normally ONLY carry arms when they know they are facing armed criminals.

It is probably far too late for America to ban guns, the population is far too used to having access.

Sue, it's a little disturbing that your police don't know how to fire guns. That wouldn't make me feel very safe...

My view is that right now in the United States, both honest and dishonest people own guns. If gun control was enforced, only dishonest people would own guns. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me.

I would feel a darn sight more uncomfortable if our police started carrying guns, scarey stuff. They have only recently been issued with Mace, that is pretty radical.

I don't understand why anyone would want the responsibility of having a weapon. I hated carrying a rifle! And I can't tell you how many times my sister has phoned from her boyfriend's house at one O'clock in the morning on the weekend to say that she's forgotten to hide her M16, and please will I remove the firing mechanism and hide each part of the rifle in a different room. Well, I suppose it could be worse- at least it's not an Uzzi!

My mother has been a police officer since I was about 10. I am now 23, and she is still a member of the LAPD. I grew up around guns. There was always atleast 2 guns in my house. My mother saw no need for a safe, so she didn't have one. My brother and I knew not to go near her weapons, and we never did. However, there was always this one kid in school who always begged me to bring it to school...he seemed facinated with the idea. I know if he had ended up having access to a gun, there would be some worrying to do. But, I also know that if my mom wasn't allowed to carry a gun, then she wouldn't be alive today.

Guns have only one purpose....to maim and kill. They should be carried by law enforcement and the military only.

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Sue, it's a little disturbing that your police don't know how to fire guns. That wouldn't make me feel very safe...

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Mayaserell, you should try it - come and live in Britain for a bit, see how safe (or unsafe) you really feel, knowing our police aren't packing. It's a nice feeling, honestly ....

The statistics seem to back up the UK's approach. Gun related homicide in the US is around 40 times higher than the UK.

Is that numbers or percentages?

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Guns have only one purpose....to maim and kill. They should be carried by law enforcement and the military only.
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We could say the only purpose for a car is to kill and maim as 35,000 a year are killed and several times that injured in this county. We all know some one who has been in an auto accident. But the car serves a purpose of connivance for which we are willing to sacrifice those lives and injuries.

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"Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.1 This means that each year, firearms are used more than 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.2 "

"Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606).12 And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."13 "
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The gun is a tool with the purpose of maintaining peace whether it is in the hand of a law abiding citizen or law enforcement. Like any other tool it can and is misused. But the value for which it is designed still remains.

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The gun is a tool with the purpose of maintaining peace whether it is in the hand of a law abiding citizen or law enforcement. Like any other tool it can and is misused. But the value for which it is designed still remains.

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*sigh*.

Hammers are designed to bang nails into bits of wood: if I use a hammer to batter someone else over the head I am misusing a tool. I am using it for a purpose it was not designed for.

If I use a gun to shoot someone dead, I'm not misusing it. In fact, I'm using it for exactly the purpose it was designed for. Simple really.

Great answer, hegley!!!

I was going to reply, but I couldn't do better than you.

In regards to the original issue, gun control is not the most important factor in this tragedy. Why did we leap there right away? Maybe we should go after the root of the problem: why would a 14-year old want to kill his principal? To stop violence, the answer is not to restrict all forms of violence (which is impossible), but to find the motives and deal with it from there.

It is so sad that school shootings take place; sometimes people are not even shocked by them anymore.

I'm not sure you can separate the issue of gun control from this tragedy--or from the other tragedies which have occurred in our schools.

The availability of guns allows people--and children--to act out their aggression in a lethal manner toward others as well as themselves. Guns provide a convenient method--and a method which can be rapid and used without ever making physical contact with the victim. Guns empower their users to do things they might otherwise never do because, without the gun, they would be incapable of the act.

Teenagers can hate teachers and principals for a great many reasons, both rational and irrational, but a teen who has no access to a gun is unlikely to act out his anger by actually killing them. Other methods of attack generally require closer contact with a victim and greater physical strength on the part of the attacker.

Guns impart power and strength to the user and this may be a psychological factor in affecting a teen's decision to kill someone they hate. The gun may make the decision possible.

While the gun might not be the cause of the hatred or rage, it is impossible to discount the gun's importance as a method of aggression. Guns open up new and easy possibilities for expressing rage. Guns give a skinny teen considerable strength. Guns give power. Guns make killing very easy.

Handguns are meant to kill. That is their purpose. A sick impulsive kid who hates his principal, and perhaps himself, can grab a gun and quickly end two lives without much thought or planning having to go into any of it. The gun is what makes it possible. The gun provides a solution which might not otherwise be available.

We cannot restrict all forms of weapons, but that does not mean that we should have a highly lethal weapon so easily available in our society. The more people arm themselves, allegedly in self defense, the more aggressive a society we become, and the more we all think in terms of killing. Anyone who owns a handgun is obviously prepared to use it against another human being. Perhaps if those guns were not so available we would all have to find better solutions to deal with aggression and violence. But as long as those guns are available we don't have to bother.
Truthfully I feel the insistence on the "right to bear arms" shows how little we actually think of our law enforcement services and how little we really believe in the law. The gun toting mentality suggests it's "every man for himself"--hardly a hallmark of a civilized and ordered society.

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Is that numbers or percentages?

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Percentages - the US has around 40 more gun related homicides per person.

Thanks. That's what I thought you meant, I just wanted to be sure.

There are a 101 things in the common house that can cause death. Many could be far worse that a gun. One of the most deadly could be a barbecue Liquid Petroleum tank found in most houses.
The point is, by chasing a false lead you over look the root cause.
I went to school with a gun in my car almost every day. And so did many of my friends. Where I grew up, I doubt there was a family that did not have at least one gun in their house. I don’t think guns could ever be more available than they were then. No one was ever threatened or killed by a gun in our community. So what has changed?
The gun is not the problem.

I agree with Mayaserell. By missing and refusing to deal with the root problem we just make it worse by limiting the gun to law abiding citizens as well as not helping the children that need help.


Hegley, the gun does have the power to kill. That is what makes it a peacekeeper with the power to save livers. But a high percentage of guns are never used to kill and fulfill their intended purpose. I have many friends in law enforcement, all retiring several guns in the course of their career. Of those dozens of guns, only one has been used to kill a man. And in this instance, the man came out of a house firing at officers. If he had not shot the man, others would likely have been killed. The same situation can have the same out come whether you are wearing a badge or not. Honest citizens should have the right to protect them selves and their families. .
By the way, a car air bag is designed to deploy on impact. If it never works is it useless?

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Truthfully I feel the insistence on the "right to bear arms" shows how little we actually think of our law enforcement services and how little we really believe in the law.
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Chelsea,, just a couple of questions,, do you have any idea what the ratio of law enforcement to citizens is? Who is in a better situation to deal with a home intruder, you are a policeman that you may never be able to call?
If you choose to not own a gun, that is your choice, but why would you not extend that choice to those who do?
If you have a kitchen fire, would you wait for the fire department to arrive, or would you use the fire extinguisher?

On more than one occasion I have pulled in behind a Highway patrol (all of whom I know in our area) who had a car load of rowdies stopped.
Our law enforcement has a tough job to do, and, In My Humble Opinion, all law-abiding citizens owe a duty ourselves and to law enforcement to accept some responsibly for our safety.

Jax, I am very fortunate. I live in a relatively low crime area--in terms of violent crime. While someone might break into my home when it is unoccupied, the chances my home will be broken into when I am home are almost nil. And I think that is generally true--most homes which are burglarized are unoccupied. I know loads of people who were burglarized, but I know no one whose home was broken into when they were there. Burglars are generally not that anxious to get caught. So I can't say I really understand the need to own a gun for "home defense". Most of my neighbors may well own guns (people around here tend not to talk about that sort of thing), and I can't see where they need them either.
I live in a suburb where the police respond to a call in literally a minute. They are always immediately available. If someone did break into my home while I was here the police could be at the scene faster than I could get a gun out of a locked compartment and load it. Or do you believe that guns should always be kept fully loaded and on the bed table? I have never heard police departments publicly advocate that citizens arm themselves--either to assist the police or to handle matters on their own.

I have also had friends--including doctors and lawyers-- who carried guns with them all the time for their personal protection because they felt threatened by clients/patients (none of whom ever made any attempt to harm them). Not only did I not feel safer when I was out with these people--the thought of the gun they were carrying actually made me feel less safe. The thought that my friends were ready and willing to kill someone was actually quite unsettling. Guns are symbols of violence--even when no threat is present, the gun remains a symbol of violence.

The easy availability of guns makes me feel much less safe in general. I feel that the pro-gun groups actually make it much easier for criminals (or potential criminals) or those who are emotionally unstable to get guns, since these groups lobby against importation restrictions and against stiffer gun control laws.
The sheer numbers of guns in our population increases the probability that one of us will become a victim of a gun-related crime either in a public place or in our workplace or school. We have even had shootings in a local church near me which killed a priest performing mass and a worshiper. Even had the priest been armed, he would not have been able to protect his life from the lunatic who shot him. Without the gun, however, the lunatic might have remained another harmless nut. The shootings on our commuter train which killed and wounded many people were random acts of violence by another nut with a gun legally obtained in another state. Without the gun, an automatic handgun, this tragedy could not have occurred. Instances of road rage would not turn lethal if people didn't have guns at the ready. Simply because so many people have guns and carry them, we are all more likely to become victims.

We are a violent society. We love guns. We love killing too--judging by both our homicide statistics and our capital punishment statistics. People who argue against abortion, and even stem cell research, and who espouse the "sacredness of life", seem to have no problems with the idea of taking life with a gun or by capital punishment. The dichotomy is fascinating.
Our jails are disgracefully overcrowded which suggests that guns are doing little to reduce crime--and their availability may actually increase our rate of crime. Yet people cling to the notion of gun ownership as though it's a basic human right. Well, I feel that particular "basic right" jeopardizes my welfare and safety because all of those guns increase my odds of being an innocent victim.

Let's look at the root causes of crime and random violence. Let's look at the deficiencies in our law enforcement agencies. The solution to these problems is not to have a fully armed citizenry. Let's look at how the U.K. and other countries manage without easy access to guns. Let's look at how their police manage without guns. Perhaps our notions of gun ownership and the need for guns are wrong, and perhaps these attitudes create an ever escalating spiral of violence. Perhaps those other countries--who also manage without capital punishment--are right.

Simply because there are other dangerous objects or substances in a home, and simply because there are other weapons which can be used by individuals, still does not mean that we shouldn't do something about the availability of guns in our homes and in our society in general. Most of those other substances and weapons are not as lethal as guns and they can't be used to kill from a distance. Dramatically decreasing the number of guns might not provide a perfect solution but it would provide some partial solution to our problems of gun related violence.

Jax, you raised a very interesting point:

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I went to school with a gun in my car almost every day. And so did many of my friends. Where I grew up, I doubt there was a family that did not have at least one gun in their house. I don’t think guns could ever be more available than they were then. No one was ever threatened or killed by a gun in our community. So what has changed?

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That's a great question. What do you think has changed?

You said that people who argue against abortion seem to have no problem with the idea of taking a life by a gun. I am against abortion, but I definitely have a problem with people going around shooting others for no reason, which was the image your statement conveyed to me. And I can assure you that 99.99% of pro-lifers will agree with me. By the way, many widely known leaders, such as Fidel Castro, Stalin and Hitler would agree that gun control works. Just look at how their regimes turned out.

janefan,

FYI: Lotsa guns in Cuba and old USSR and not just in 'well ordered millitia' either.