An Unpleasant Topic

I've heard an inaccurate statement presented as fact from several different members of the media. With all due respect to those involved (except Cho), the Virginia Tech shooting was not the largest mass murder in American history. It is not the largest school murder in American history, either.

Those horrifying distinctions belong to a tragedy in 1927 in rural Michigan. The Bath Consolidated School was attacked by a member of the school board. Andrew Kehoe blamed a property tax increase for school building improvements on his farm's foreclosure. He decided to kill kids as retribution, planning his attack over several months and using his elected position to get into the school to carefully plant dynamite charges and other explosive devices around the building for maximum carnage.

Long story short, two teachers, the school superintendent, a farmer, the Postmaster, the perp's wife and the perp died from the violence.

So did 37 kids in the third through sixth grades.

UPDATE: Last year, another nut case planned a similar assault at another Michigan school. The Educated Shoprat has more information on the Bath School tragedy in his post about the near-tragedy prevented by the police in Oxford, Michigan.