Forums > Social Discussion > school shootings

Posted: 10th Nov 2008
But you can't opt out of associating with the students that DO get involved in the sports.

But on the ADD comment, how about ACD? (Aggressive Conduct Disorder)

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081107-bully-brain.html

Posted: 10th Nov 2008
Of course sports can cause stress in youth. No one has argued that point MNS. You seem hellbent on convincing us that somehow involvement in sports is a primary cause of school violence, which simply isn't the case. What about all the good that can come from sports? Or is the good of thousands written off by the pain of a few?

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Posted: 10th Nov 2008
I've said several times that lots of good can come from sports, it just needs to be handled better in some schools, its something thats not properly kept an eye on in many places.

I'd say its the most easily prevented one.

Most of this thread I've been doubling back and re-stating things just because people have either not read things I've said earlier or have just forgotten them.

My points are not points of condemnation or of conviction, I'm aiming to promote positive discussion.


I think the sports issue has been discussed well enough. Now its time for someone to offer up something else. this is obviously a multi-faceted issue... so how about something that is within the realm of public responsibility, without just writing it off to bad parenting?

Posted: 10th Nov 2008
ACD ? Maybe...Were these shooters ever portrayed as being bullies ?


With the ADD comment I was thinking that the ADD sufferer may become alienated as "the class clown" drawing disrespect and ridicule from his fellow classmates...leading to a feeling of "needing" to retaliate.

IMO, it's a tough subject to define solely as being within the realm of public responsibility. IMO there's got to be some sort of screwy brain chemistry playing a leading role in causing someone to actually act out one of these scenarios opposed to just thinking about it.

Posted: 11th Nov 2008
Stout: I guess these shooters are more portrayed as "being bullied"... would also suit my picture of them.

MNS: Welcome to online discussions Guess we're all in the same boat when it comes to being misunderstood and having to re-state/phrase our posts...

All: I would guess that blaming "bad parenting" is a too easy way out of this. We're living in a world where parents and their children have little time together (half or full day the children spend in school, the parents in work) - thus we're too fast in putting the blame on people who are only partly involved in the process.

School sports and the general ambience in schools should receive more attention (the former being MNS's point I reckon).

If we want to create a polite and respectful society (one that doesn't need guns to defend these principles that is ) I'd say we need to implement subjects as "social science", "how to deal with bullyish attitudes" to face the challenge of a growing and denser society...

If we continue to rely on "survival of the fittest" we will see more school violence in general - IMHO

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 11th Nov 2008
FireTom, I agree with your idea on implementing more socially based learning outcomes in schools. At first I thought "Well we're already doing that" But then I thought more on it... we do that in PRIMARY SCHOOLS. But it stops when they move into secondary school... as though their growth is already predetermined. I guess the issue here is that with a crowded curriculum all round that its hard to promote these things...

This could slot in with my sport idea... because team building could be worked into that curriculum moreso than the other studies...

In order to work it into other subjects you'd have to re-shuffle the entire way that things are taught in secondary school...

Posted: 12th Nov 2008
Basically it's: what does it help if someone is a geek in physics, if he's going to respond to an insult with a Heckler & Koch?

Unless - of course - we implement jobs for highly qualified inmates...

When will we learn that the EQ is as important (if not more) as the IQ?

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 26th Nov 2008
scanning
bad parenting to me is the parents who think it's ok their kids are partying, don't ask questions aren't involved.
those that want to be friends

i think a gree

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed

Posted: 26th Nov 2008
Fif? You ok? some unhappy loner with too easy access to firearms just came in your computer room and when BAM?

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 26th Nov 2008
Really? Seriously? You guys are discounting 'bad parenting' as a minor problem?

Sports may have a SMALL influence on school shootings, bullying probably has a larger one. But Parenting us the universal constant. Bad parenting is NOT the "easy" fix, it's the most difficult! You can ban sports, but school violence will still happen. You can ban art classes, and computers, cell phones, and any other number of things and school violence will STILL happen for as long as these kids aren't getting proper parenting.

The fact that this conversation is even taking place still amazes me. It boggles my mind that you people *agree* with the bad parents that it's "not their fault at all" and want to push the blame off on even more diverse topics.

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Posted: 26th Nov 2008
That would be the liberal ( in the American sense of the word ) take on events like this..

I'm still going with

"The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload "

on this one.

Posted: 26th Nov 2008
Originally Posted By: Lurch...It boggles my mind that you people *agree* with the bad parents that it's "not their fault at all" and want to push the blame off on even more diverse topics.

Lurch, I'm wondering who exactly, you are referring to when you use the term "you people", as in the above ???

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 27th Nov 2008
Side that one.... beside FiF nobody has given an example for "bad parenting" (as being one or the reason for ss's)...

As everybody else, parents do what they think is "best" for them and their children... ermm, add "most" and "in this moment" to that statement.

"Bad parents" usually don't really know better. Who's going to tell them? You?And what criteriae are you going to apply exactly? At what point can you tell "bad parenting" from "age-(hormone)-induced rebellion" and still apply corrective measures comfortably?

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 1st Dec 2008
???
I was rushing a post and didn't get a chance to proofread
bad parenting is largely to blame.
Parents worry too much about being liked by their kids.

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed

Posted: 1st Dec 2008
we just need Dr. Phil to knock some sense into them
Parents need to hold other parents accountable too.
peer pressure them
You don't need to tell bad parenting to hormone induced things. if they've had good parenting, there is structure and decision making skills that making those hormonal ideas much more apparently bad ideas
good parenting from the start helps avoid the "my hormones made me do it" excuse-and that is all it is, an excuse for bad behavior

Faith
Nay, whatever comes one hour was sunlit and the most high gods may not make boast of any better thing than to have watched that hour as it passed

Posted: 17th Dec 2008
Sorry Faith, but I can't make much sense of your posts.

I reckon it's a bit easy to exclusively blame parents for all their childrens deeds...

the best smiles are the ones you lead to

Posted: 18th Dec 2008
Since when are parents not responsible for the lives they bring into this world? It's far from *easy* to blame the parents, the parents are constantly looking for a scapegoat to excuse themselves from blame.

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Posted: 18th Dec 2008
When people like [Old link] are parents... what're we going to do when the parents fail? Whats the backup plan to protect society? And during adolescence when its quite normal for a teenager to rebel how are you meant to monitor what they're doing, who they are hanging out with, what their values are becoming?

My approaches are all of course going to be based off the school system, since thats what I'm most familiar with... a tough job, teachers already have enough on their plates, but thats all I've got.

There is not one person on the face of the planet that is solely responsible for a childs upbringing. All the corruption freely available in the world, horrific decisions being made by governments... corrupt systems in which being free from national debt is not only unlikely but actually IMPOSSIBLE... How do we nurture trust in such an environment, especially on our own? (Not that I'm a parent. :))

Posted: 18th Dec 2008
Originally Posted By: Lurch Since when are parents not responsible for the lives they bring into this world? It's far from *easy* to blame the parents, the parents are constantly looking for a scapegoat to excuse themselves from blame.


So Lurch, if all gun violence is down to bad parenting as you insist, then it’s their parents fault and their parents fault and their parents fault- all the way back to the slaughter of the Indians and slavery. That’s the real source of the violence in America at least, and hey America exports violence all over the world. Not only by bullying small countries, but also by glorifying violence in block buster movies like Rambo and Dirty Harry Callahan. And hey, people seem surprised when kids start picking up guns and start shooting them at each other. Of course in America, not sure about other countries, people are encouraged to carry weapons to shoot down their enemies (real or imaginary) as if it’s the natural way for people to behave. Then people can’t understand where kids all over the world get the idea that shooting people solves all their problems. It's not rocket science.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 18th Dec 2008
Well if you really want to follow that logic than I guess it's the Brit's fault.. Or maybe the Romans? "Exporting violence all over the world"

If you'd ever actually read and *understand* what I write, you might notice a few things. Like I didn't say *all* gun violence is caused by bad parenting, there is a certain point where we grow beyond our parents. Most *school* violence could be prevented with more active, and dare I say, BETTER parenting.

I've got a blowtorch in my toolbox, that doesn't mean it's the solution to every problem. There are very specific and very rare cases where I should use it, and when I need it, there isn't really much of a substitute.

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Posted: 18th Dec 2008
Lurch, at least the Brits have restrictions on the sale and use of guns to the general public, as well as the police force.

So, if as you say, most school violence could be prevented with more active and better parenting. Then why go down the line of Texas school OKs gun-toting teachers. All that does is reinforce to students that guns are an acceptable way to solve problems. At least the Finnish government seems to be taking a responsible approach to the school shootings. They are questioning private ownership handguns, and bringing in more civilised gun regulations. IMO, this is way in advance of the American solution of more and more guns.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 19th Dec 2008
I can't say I'm up for blaming gun culture or the access to firearms as being a valid reason for these type of shootings.

If we take gun controlled Canada as an example, we have ( roughly) 8 of these type shootings in the past 30 odd years and when we compare that to the (roughly) 50 in the US and take the relative population numbers into account, the numbers don't add up to support this idea.

With the US being 10X the population of Canada, we have (roughly) the same rate of school shootings in the same time period.

Posted: 22nd Dec 2008
Stout, I’m surprised by your figures, and your conclusion. Have you considered the copy cat effect?


Lurch, I think it’s ironic that you talk about blaming bad parents for the shootings, and here you are pointing a shot-gun in my face; and in the face of everyone else in the community. Didn’t anyone tell you it was rude and dangerous to point guns at people? I mean you don’t pull out you Glock, and put it on the table beside you while you eat meals do you? I hope not. So why do it here? It sends out a bad message to impressionable young people, as does the whole NRA attitude to guns.

If you want to know the cause of the shootings then look at the second amendment, and all that rubbish that people make about "their" so-called right to bear arms. No way, was that amendment ever intended to let citizens good or bad, yound or old, carry semi-automatic M16’s or any gun for personal use.


And when the going gets tough?

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 22nd Dec 2008
Hi Stone

I was rather surprised with the results too. I could have used Australia and shown the outcome to make the opposite point, but I didn't, because I'm Canadian.

I'm using "roughly" because it all depends on what you want to call a school shooting. I hope we're on the same page with "guy goes into school with weapons intending to commit mayhem with little prospect of surviving" as a definition. I'm wondering where shooters like the I Don't like Mondays chick, who just went on impulse fit in though.

Most of the shooters I'm talking about planned their actions and put some serious consideration into getting firepower. I figure i could go out and arm myself if I wanted to. Big whoop, a few courses, some paperwork and viola, I'm Rambo.

Posted: 22nd Dec 2008
Hi Stout, I looked up school shootings at wiki. And I’d suggest that because so many of these school shootings have occurred in America, then America is the source of this phenomenon.

In that light, Rambo seems to have had his day, and it’s sociopaths like Dexter (America's favourite serial killer) that are popular now, perhaps because Dexter only kills the bad guys who deserve it.

Seems I’ve heard that line somewhere before.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 23rd Dec 2008
Hi Stone..I was trying to address this on a per capita basis keeping in mind the definition of school shooting I posted above.

True, the bulk of the shootings happened in the US, and IMO American gun culture would make it easier for someone with designs on committing one of these acts, to get firearms.

The problem blaming gun culture.....These guys are usually planners. They turn this scenario over and over in their heads for ( weeks, months ? ) and devote a significant amount of effort to thinking just how they'll go about arming themselves.

Meaning that gun control is just another obstacle to overcome.

The non existence of firearms would be a completely different story though however it would take an act of FSM to make that a reality. I suspect Australia is somewhat like Canada with guns being not so popular amongst city dwellers and a rural population that's armed to the teeth. Then there's all those guns that are just sitting, unused, in basements...just in case there's a "need"

I've never seen Dexter I guess it's never on when I'm watching TV but I just bought a PVR a couple of weeks ago, so I'll look around for it.

There's a bazillion movies. TV shows, video games that feature violence that are watched by billions of people who don't commit these type of acts. They may seem a convenient scapegoat ( and a believable motivation when used as a defense in a criminal trial ) but there's something that causes certain people to cross the line between fantasy and reality.

That something IMO, is a mental illness.

Posted: 23rd Dec 2008
Hi Stout, I don’t think you can measure everything on a per capita basis, and I don’t think you can ignore the impact of living in a culture that worships guns. As to bad parenting, I’d say that as long as a society fails to restrict access to guns, then it would appear that they care more for their guns than their children. Though, the more you read about school shootings the more you realise it has little to do with bad parenting. Here is a bit from the American Psychological Association.

Psychology of the School Shootings. Dewey G. Cornell, Ph.D., Curry School of Education, University of Virginia

“We can learn from these school shootings because they reflect factors not typical of the antisocial offenders. They challenge our stereotypes and force us recognize violent influences we otherwise might overlook. They were committed by white, middle class youth who had many social and economic advantages. Many of them came from good homes where they were loved, not abused, by their parents. Many of their parents were well-respected citizens and good role models for their children. Although it is common to blame the parents in these cases, this cannot explain what their children did. At worst, we can say that these parents failed to recognize what was happening to their children, not that they caused it to happen. A breakdown in parental supervision is a serious problem, but it is not the full explanation. Instead, we have to recognize the role of broader cultural factors affecting children outside the home.

There are many risk factors for violence, and many young people today have one or more risk factors, yet do not engage in violent behavior. In order for violence to occur, there must be a motive for violence, method of committing violence which the child has learned, and a means of carrying out the violence. Let's consider the motive, method, and means of the recent school shootings........”

It’s a long article, and you can read it in full at the American Psychological Association website. I’ll just point out a couple of key factors:

1. Children of today live in a social environment where violence is a primary form of entertainment, and they are exposed to values and ideas which reinforce and glorify violence.

2. The means to carry out these violent plans is the ready availability of firearms. Without access to guns, none of these school tragedies could have take place. Guns are a critical risk factor. When juvenile homicide tripled in this country in just ten years, all of the increase was in gun-related killing (Cornell, 1993; Snyder & Sickmund, 1995). There was no increase in juveniles stabbing or beating one another to death. Guns are not the cause of the violence, but they provide the means.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 24th Dec 2008
It tends to be combination of a lot of things. Trouble at home, problems at school (the one usually contributing to the other), kids feeling excluded, made angry, feeling they have no where to turn for help, feeling alone. I don't want to blame anyone specifically, but it does seem the parents, specifically parental negligence, have a lot to do with it. I mean, before Columbine Harris and Klebold were collecting guns and building bombs in Harris's garage, and there parents didn't have a clue. Negligence of teachers and school officials contributes a lot as well, I think.

Posted: 24th Dec 2008
Hi Stone.

Thanks for the link. What we have here is a classic nature vs nurture discussion and although there's a real push towards trying to explain these sorts of acts using cultural/social reasons, I'm firmly in the nature camp on this issue.

I understand the desire to "blame society" as it gives us something tangible that we can relate to as being the cause(s) and it also gives us steps we can take, as a society, to help limit these types of events.

I'm still unconvinced though, I figure that there's something as yet unexplored that causes people to "go bad" and commit these types of atrocitie. If we take the idea that these are glorified suicides ( the werther effect I mentioned earlier ) and suicide being a mental health issue, IMO, the violence is more of a way of making a strong statement about that suicide than anything else.

I going to raise the millions and millions of kids who grew up witnessing violence in the media. yet never crossed the line to actually commit serious acts of violence themselves.

I agree that access to firearms plays a role in enabling these types of acts as they pretty much guarantee that the perpetrator is going to end up dead in the end. I can't think of a "simpler" way to murder a bunch of people while still remaining a threat that has to be neutralised with lethal force. As to being a "cause"..I'm skeptical, still.

Hi cupcake.

Yes, I agree it's a combination of factors, mostly peer related, that lead to these sort of acts. There's something that drives these people to take their own lives in this manner rather than just "quietly" taking their own lives. It's understandable how teenagers wouldn't want their parents to know what they're up to, that's typical and it's not too difficult for a teenager to violate the trust that their parents have in them an lie about their whereabouts and actions.

As a society just how close to Minority Report do we want to get ?

Posted: 4th Jan 2009
Originally Posted By: FireTomWhat is it guys? Students taking arms, walking into schools and killing (innocent) people... I don't get what's behind this...

Not just since Columbine, the history of school shootings go as far back as 1966 (according to this Wiki article) and it's not just in the US - sure the majority of shootings do happen in the US but it's not just there...

Recent shooting in Finland (liberal gun laws, btw)

What message does it hold? I just can't make sense of it

***********************************************************************
UPDATE:

Most school shootings happen in the USA (reason for that might be the existing gun laws, regardless of other factors)

Namely 41 incidences, starting 1966, with aprox. 162 victims. Mostly the perpetrators got either shot by police or shot themselves...

The Virginia Tech shooting so far has been the on with the highest death toll (33) followed by the first school shooting ever, the "University of Texas at Austin massacre" (17), the "Columbine High School massacre" (15) and the "Red Lake High School massacre" (10).

Only 4 of these shootings did not claim any victims.

It's hard to determine the ethnic background of the perpetrators as often there are no pictures included, but there seem to be only three women and three Asians involved in the killings.

Canada faced 8 shootings with 27 victims, the highest toll at a time having been 15 (including the perpetrator) - the first shooting happened in 1975.

The other 17 shootings have been spread across the globe, with three in Finland, two in Israel, Germany and Finland (to put it in numeric order). But just either one in India, Thailand, Yemen, Philippines, Argentina and Lebanon. There have been more than 90 victims in these shootings, with the highest tolls (at one given time) in Israel (22), the UK (16), Germany (16), followed by Finland (9 and 10).

Outstanding (and therefore not mentioned above) is the "Beslan School Hostage Crisis" where a group of armed rebels took an entire school hostage. In the process of "liberation", at least 334 hostages got killed, including 186 children...

The motifs for these shootings range from sheer insanity (like the first ever/ USA), political (Russia), religious (Israel) over revenge for mobbing to the simple "I don't like Mondays" (Brenda Ann Spencer)...

The perpetrator's ages - the youngest perpetrator having been age 6 (killing a classmate with a pistol he found in his uncle's home) to over 40, having been students or just random strangers to the schools, from (mainly) individuals over teams (like Columbine) or a group of three (Israel).

My initial claim that it's predominantly a white, western, male phenomenon has been intuitively correct - if you happen to have other evidence, I'll be happy to get corrected.

As for discussing the motifs, I guess it's helpful to put aside political and such - as it's clear: the highest possible death toll with the least possible resistance - and suggest we focus on those who went in there as students killing other students.
***********************************************************************

I think it's funny how people believe gun laws will stop criminals from owning guns, or stop the driven to carry out a task. Do you really think liberal gun laws are at fault? Russia has cities that have mandatory gun ownership that have not seen murders in years. It has nothing to do with laws, it has to do with the f***** up world we live in right now. I'll sit be my AR-15 and my .45, you sit there with nothing. When the people have lost everything they lose it -- you'll wish you were sitting behind me.

School shooting suck, a pity they don't arm the teachers. An armed society is a polite society
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