James Alan Fox of Northeastern University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice said Friday's incident seems reminiscent of several from the late 1980s involving shooting rampages at schools.
Fox couldn't speak to the specifics of the Connecticut case, but said, "If someone is interested in punishing society where it's most vulnerable, they know that a school is a place where lots of young, innocent children, our most cherished members of society, are congregated and under their gun -- literally."
Children are often seen as "easy targets to get even with society -- or maybe it was the school. We don't know what the primary target was, and the primary motive."
Still, over the past few years, shootings in K-12 schools have become increasingly rare. After reaching a high of 63 deaths in the 2006-2007 school year, the number of people killed in "school-associated" incidents dropped to 33 last year -- lowest in two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
While a few dozen children are killed each year in school, statistically speaking it remains the safest place a child will likely ever be, with the lowest chance of being killed. "When you consider the fact that there are over 50 million schoolchildren in America, the chances are over one in two million, not a high probability," said Fox. "And most cases that do occur are in high schools and less so in middle schools -- and hardly ever in elementary schools."