Revenge of the Nerds and School Shootings

originally posted by: Edumakated
One thing that seems to be glossed over in all these school shootings with the focus on guns is that the perpetrators almost always seem to be social misfits who were bullied.

There doesn't seem to be much emphasis on stopping bullying.

This is not to excuse any of these nut bags from their crimes, but what responsibility do the students have in these cases?

Bullies have been around forever, so it isn't like being bullied is a new thing. One of the best horror movies Carrie is essentially about a girl exacting revenge on her tormentors at high school prom. Instead of blasting them away with a assault rifle she did other things at the prom.

I think what is different now is that Columbine put into the minds that this was an acceptable form of revenge. Second, video games have popularized first person shooters. Third, incessant media coverage and social media seems to encourage copy cat shooters.

Just some random thoughts. Let's discuss and debate without talking about gun control, but the OTHER issues.

Our First Lady has a campaign against bullying... maybe people should listen to her instead of mock her.

a reply to: introvert

if we can all agree that guns are a small part of the issue, perhaps we can then, start to focus on all the other parts of this. But until we stop putting most of the energy into bitching about the tool used, we will continue around this circle jerk.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Until the last year i thought bullies in adulthood didn't exist.

A recent series of experiences have taught me better.

a reply to: GuidedKill

She is Trumps wife. So nothing she does will work because of #Resist

In the recent shooting, it was the coaches of the school who bullied the kid. Marginlized him for smelling, not being manly enough. He used to play football then quit. I remember how coaches treated those kids.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: DBCowboy

Until the last year i thought bullies in adulthood didn't exist.

A recent series of experiences have taught me better.

Bullies never go away.

They just change tactics.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: GuidedKill

She is Trumps wife. So nothing she does will work because of #Resist

In the recent shooting, it was the coaches of the school who bullied the kid. Marginlized him for smelling, not being manly enough. He used to play football then quit. I remember how coaches treated those kids.

That's what I thought. Other accounts I read said he was an edgy loner (Nazi symbols and alt-right music stuff) but wasn't bullied by other kids.

Just his piece of garbage coach.

Being bullied by adults is the worse.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: introvert

if we can all agree that guns are a small part of the issue, perhaps we can then, start to focus on all the other parts of this. But until we stop putting most of the energy into bitching about the tool used, we will continue around this circle jerk.

I completely agree with that.

The problem is not guns. The problem is people.

originally posted by: Krakatoa
Another contributing factor IMO is the proliferation of mind altering medications being prescribed to younger and younger ages for "syndromes" that were non-existent 20-30 years ago. This has made the pharmaceutical industries BILLIONS of dollars.

But, at what cost to the youth?

I've been researching hard on dyslexia lately for personal reasons, but I ran across some statistics on long-term medication results for ADD/ADHD that show little improvement. I wish I could recall exactly where I could find them.

The problem with those diagnoses is that they are supposed to be a diagnosis of last resort, meaning that everything else has been ruled out first. Lots of things present with general symptoms of ADD/ADHD, but the easiest answer is often to feed the child a pill and drug him or her into a stupor rather than look harder at what actually may be going on. It's also cheaper than expensive and time consuming testing and remediation/intervention techniques that will be ongoing over the lifetime of a learner.

a reply to: RickinVa

This I agree with.

I think there is a problem inside the schools, but I also think we have a cultural problem too.

As has been often pointed out - the guns have been around forever, and much more prominently in the past, they haven't changed. We have as a people. So what things inside our own society have shifted?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: RickinVa

This I agree with.

I think there is a problem inside the schools, but I also think we have a cultural problem too.

As has been often pointed out - the guns have been around forever, and much more prominently in the past, they haven't changed. We have as a people. So what things inside our own society have shifted?

We have changed to a culture of violence. Winning is everything and losing is unacceptable.
Look at our heros, violent men, not scholars or intellectuals. What sports draw the largest crowds and are an national obsession?

From a halfassed futurist point of view; nothing will change and mass shooting will almost be normal SOP.
Dystopian blood lust unchallenged. There's also a negative side.


www.globalresearch.ca...

I am middle aged......and I was VERY resistant to taking the medications that were thrown at me most of my life......mood disorders....PTSD from severe abuse at the hands of a SEVERELY mentally ill mother.....seizure medications....migraine medications.....and I am only 52 years old and have memory issues, balance issues....a myriad of health issues from taking medications AS AN ADULT!!! A child's brain is still developing......think about ALL of the drugs and medical devices that have been recalled and the companies are now being sued....( I worked in medicine for 30 years and my husband is an engineer in the medical device industry....)
And the drugging of kids is just the tip of the iceberg......the bottom line is that THERE IS NO MENTAL HEALTHCARE IN THIS COUNTRY.....it is considered an embarrassment !!!!! WHY????? Look at the TV??!! No wonder we are all stressed out and crazy.....we're all walking in a minor PTSD haze waiting for the end of the world....waiting for "the man" or waiting for "something"
Bullying......I was bullied as a kid...and I am a GIRL......it might not have been all physical...but it was pure hell what girls can doo to one another.....but I didn't shoot up my school, (but what I did to that girl almost bordered on psycho......she never bullied me again...there WERE positives to being the victim of child abuse.....) But I digress.....
This society is MESSED UP.......and we, collectively turn our heads from the ones that need the most help.......
It doesn't PAY to be a psychiatrist......it doesn't PAY to go into social work......it actually PAYS to lock someone up in JAIL...NOT to get that every same person help for their OBVIOUS problem.....(this is why I hate DUI laws so much...get the poor folks HELP.......or wait outside EVERY SINGLE BAR and arrest everyone coming out....) again...I digress.....

I have bipolar disorder and didn't get help for DECADES.....I was embarrassed.....in Texas...even GIRLS didn't talk about that kind of stuff.....

Now, in 2018...just TRY and get help.......MONTHS to get in to see a professional.....the behavioral health facilities are filled with CRUEL workers...dirty facilities.....they just seem to drug you and shove you into a group setting...drain your insurance company until they say you are "well (or the insurance company stops paying...and then send you home with a bottle of pills.....if you can afford it maybe you can go to an outpatient group session or 10....

this is mental health for the average person in the West anyway..........

ok.....Cray Cray rant over....but it is true...........

youth need direction....not drugs......

we ALL need love, understanding and direction....drugs have not helped except when I had a breakdown and needed emergency SEDATION........
a reply to: Krakatoa

originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: Edumakated

I think you don't believe video games have anything to do with it because you probably like video games. I love video games. I love my FPS games and gratuitous violence. However, I can see how these games could desensitize someone who is already unstable.

Do you believe the violence in Saturday morning cartoons have a similar desensitizing affect?

I find it interesting that you believe a gun culture is a contributing factor but willing to excuse an extension of that culture which is in video games.

I said it is something we need to look at.

If we are interested in finding solutions, we should not so easily dismiss things.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we should ban video games or anything like that. However, I am saying I can see how hyper realistic video games could be a factor in encouraging a nut job to engage in a mass shooting. Of course, we are talking about a very small subset of the population, but I don't think we can ignore it as a variable.

Ok. I suppose we can look in to it as well.

I just find the example I gave to be a bit more relevant, considering it actually involves real people glorifying real violence against others they do not like.

Video games...it's animated fantasy.

In some kids violent Saturday morning cartoons may contribute to violent behavior. Even though I am a big hip hop fan, I believe it also contributes to a lot of social dysfunction.

I recall listening to a radio show one evening where middle school kids were calling in to give "shout outs" on air. Some kid called in saying he wanted to give a shout out to all the "Pimps and players" at XYZ middle school. The radio DJ was like hold up, there ain't no pimps and players at your middle school. It was clear that this kid had been listening to too much hip hop glorifying pimps and players.

We see extensions of this dysfunction in much of the street violence that is also glorified. Yes, some might argue that hip hop is just a reflection of life, but I also think in some ways hip hop actually encourages that dysfunctional behavior in some individuals.

Again, I am not saying any of these things by itself causes mass shootings or other ills, nor do I advocate banning them. However, when you combine it with other dysfunctions, they very well may be a contributing factor. For 99.99% of the population, video games, guns, or anything is not going to set them off to go do a mass killing. However, we aren't talking about the vast majority, we are talking about some infinitesimal small amount of people who get their wires crossed and decide to go batshizz crazy.

originally posted by: Ghostsinthefog
Regarding bullying.

You are right it's not new, but technology today is. In my day a little name calling, few people involved done.

But today bullies use social media to destroy people socially to the point it breaks people.

Imagine being a kid and having malicious lies, beatings and torments at school, and then having it put all over social media for everyone locally and globally to see. Mix that with teenage emotions i cant even imagine... so yes to a degree bullies hold responsibility

OUCH!!
I grew up in the 1970's/1980's (graduated HS 1985) and i could not IMAGINE having social media to blast out my shame......(my mother was schizophrenic and was beautiful...and only 16 years my senior......and she slept with my first boyfriend. I grew up in a VERY small town in TX....I couldn't imagine how I would have survived THAT being blasted over Twitter or Facebook.......)
YOINKS.

I WILL point something out about medications though. I had to take gabapentin for a few months. One day I was driving my car and have this OVERWHELMING urge to drive my car into oncoming traffic. When I say overwhelming, I mean, I literally almost turned the wheel to the left and died. It took a few days for me to call the doctor and during those few days, I had UNRELENTING urges to do things like electrocute myself in the tub, take the entire bottle of pheno barbital, etc....I called the pharmacy and it's called "suicidal ideation" and it was a BIG side effect of gabapentin. I was immediately switched to topamax and those thoughts went away, (along with the 20 pounds I had put on from the gabapentin).

Nobody can tell me that these brain drugs do not cause changes in the brain......

I have epilepsy.....I see TRIPPY things during auras, during some of my complex partial seizures and post ictal from some of the more strange seizures I have,,,,,the brain is a very unknown land still......and we're playing with it with chemicals we're giving our children......

As someon who was bullied in school, I never thought about shooting anyone. However, pushing bullies down the stairs, yup. I was/am a social outcast because of the bullies and to a lesser degree, the teachers. It started when I met my first bully and went to a teacher, I was told to ignore it (sticks and stones), next time they threw sand in my eyes. Other times I could scream for a teacher, they would look at me and nothing, to them, if it is a bully and a victim it is not a fight yet. The moment I would push bac, a teacher was there like someone shouted free money! Standing up to a bully was made to seem worse then what the bully did to start it all. If I could go back with what I know now, I'd make sure a lot of people were watching and not hit the bully as he hit me, but hit him so hard and many times so that my punishment would be deserved and no one would dare touch me again!

I think it is all by plan. If there are bullies and victim, there is an authority figure and a pawn. Without that division, people will feel more connected and unified, the line between have and have nots will be blurred and the elite few will not get as rich and powerful. It is easier to control people by fear than it is to control them by suggestion.

The way to fix the bully issue is to find all the bullies and take them out of school and then continue their classes in the summer away from the general population. Try to break up groups of them as they tend to egg each other on. They could also separate the victims from the bullies and put them all in another school, but the bullies would just find new targets. If that is somehow not possible, make sure the bullies and victims never see each other and never have a teacher leave the room without some one else to fill for them.

Also, by saying that the social outcasts are the problem, you are saying that anyone that does not conform must be punished untill morale improves and they fall inline.

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
at somepoint we need smaller local control.....of the schools

I see smaller schools as less intimidating to a young one....get smaller classes...23 students max....howabout that

om this subject there are lots of possibilities...but don't just go friggin bigger

That's actually a good point.

Everything that gets too big becomes problematic. Everything.

a reply to: olaru12

I think you have something wrong in yourself where you equate winning and losing to violence. To me, the two concepts are mutually exclusive, but when you try to conflate them that may be where your problem begins.

I was very successful at a lot of things, but I was also taught the concept of sportsmanship. Sportsmanship means you are gracious in winning as you are in losing because no one always wins just like no one always loses. The purpose of competition is to allow you to test yourself and find your limits ... on everything.

But I guess for someone like you, every time I won at something, anything (even the academic stuff), I was perpetrating a horrific act of violence on everyone around me? That's just plain crazy and stupid.

A very interesting thread and also nice to see some honest opinions from all sides. I usually have a different opinion from a few members like bigfatfurrytexan and DBCowboy who have posted here, but not this time.
this comment by DB stood out.

We need to teach children how to cope with bullies.
We could remove bullies from schools, but who's going to remove bullies from adulthood?

This is something I think every parent should do, teach their children about bulling, tell them how they should talk to their parents about it, and how to cope with it, especially with social media and how children seem to think this is now SO important in their lives, how do they cope, if they are singled out for some reason?
I also think some sort of discipline could help with learning to cope with losing and with gaining confidence in different situations.
Also with the talk about gaming, I think this is something that really needs sorting out. The diffrence in the graphics now and how these games look compared to when I played doom and solider of fortune is a world apart. I still game and when playing an 18 certified game, the amout of abuse from what sound like 12 year old kids or younger is just crazy, how are parents allowing them on these types of games? I agree that "computer games" isn't turning children into killers but it could be dehumanizing them to violence when playing adult content at such a young age.


Now to the delicate subject of gun laws.....

I'm British so some of you will just turn off now. My personal opinion has nothing to do with banning firearms, never has been, lets make that abundantly clear.

I think that gun ownership and the 2nd amenment issue has taken over a disscusion about proper ownership of a firearm.
I feel that the part that reads "Well regulated millita" should mean that that right also mean if you decide to own a firearm that it comes with some responsibilities to the owner, after all the term regulated means "disciplined" or "trained"?
A lot of these school shooting are by children who have access to firearms that are owned by their parents. Doesn't this make some of you conscience firearms owners angry? Don't you think that the right to own a firearm should also mean keeping it safe, not left in a drawer, under a seat or in an unlocked cabinet? When its not in your vicinity shouldn't it be stored where no one else has access to it? A lot of comments are about the criminal who has a gun, where did that fire arm come from? If a "law abiding gun owner" is burgled, was his firearm stored securely when they weren't at home?

I did Japanese martial arts for a long time and owned a Katana (samurai sword to the layman), I also had a very young brother. The very first thing I taught him before any "moves" was how to respect a katana and it's lethality, never once had any "mishaps", "misuse" or "accidents", he went on to be British junior Kendo champion three years running and is now a martial arts teacher himself in his spare time.

a reply to: Edumakated

What's different now than when I or you grew up is that when peoppe getting bullied fight back they are blamed

Then the school does nothing to stop the bullying

I k ow ive dealt with parents wanting me to teach their kids self defense for this reason for years now

a reply to: Edumakated

Bullying will never be stopped. It's the natural order of things.