An Amish Sin

On October 2, 2006, a mass shooting occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township, Pennsylvania. Thirty-two-year-old Charles Carl Roberts IV took hostages and shot ten girls (aged 6–13), killing six unsuspecting citizens (five in the initial incident, and a sixth who succumbed to her injuries in 2024), before dying by suicide in the schoolhouse. The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the Amish community's response was widely discussed by the national media. The West Nickel Mines School was later demolished, and a new one-room schoolhouse, the New Hope School, was built at another location. It is the deadliest school shooting in Pennsylvania history.