school shootings

[Pitiless Wanderer]

this isnt a matter of opinion, so i wont ask you your opinions regarding these indicents. the only fact is school shootings are tragic.


so are the motives behind them.

is bullying an excuse, -a VALID excuse- for bringing a gun to school and attacking people? it seems very straightforward: he has picked on me for so long, the only way to make him stop is to shoot him. but this is very scary thinking for anyone, especially 7th graders to have this mindset.

bullying is a problem in every school in america, but shootings dont happen daily, monthly...or even yearly. but when they do happen, can you really feel bad for the victim ONLY without looking at the person who did the shooting? i dont condone this violence, obviously. but i do have a soft spot for kids who get picked on. when youre young and you get picked on, the effects can be devistating. what are your thoughts? what can be done? kids will always be picked on...it isnt going to change. how can we assure ourselves that no matter how badly people get picked on they dont do anything like this? are kids who shoot bullies psychotic or rational people capable of rational thinking? these events are occuring more frequently in the past5 or so years.

 

[MasterOLightning]

Clearly, negligent parenting is the real issue. Of course, no one talks about this because it's hard not to blame the person firing the gun.

The people who come up with all the reasons, such as music, video games, movies, etc. are parents themselves who don't want to acknowledge that they are very responsible for their children's actions.

 

[Pitiless Wanderer]

yea i agree it is a parental problem more than anything.

when i was younger, i played the most violent video games, watched the most violent movies you could find and i never brought a weapon to school.

 

[infoterror]

is bullying an excuse, -a VALID excuse- for bringing a gun to school and attacking people?

Of course. You bully someone or attack them, and you're opening the battlefield.

Real reason this stuff is happening: our society is collapsing, adults do nothing, and kids have to grow up into it. They wouldn't mind bullying if they were able to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Lord SteveO]

Over here in the UK, where we don't get school shootings, i often think a lot of what some kids get up to is the result of under-parenting.
In fact we daily see on the news storries of teenagers or youths acting in ways that nobody in their right mind would think of acting if their parents had payed attention to them when they were younger.
I player violent games, listen angry music and watch violent films, do i think it's ok to beat kitten to death, or rob a fellow kid of his money and phone? No.
People over here are constantly blamming the media (not the newspapers etc, i mean the films TV etc), but they often (and i my opinion purposfully, ignore the fact that the one factor that might stop these kids acting this way is better parenting. People won't admit to the truth. Kid X did Y because his parents were assholes who ignored him and we crap role models.
I agree with infoterror, society is collasping, at least so far as there being no good role models for people. And i don't mean role models for kids, i mean for everyone. We see as many adults acting i ways that are bad as we do kids.

I think the schools shooting are tragic, for both sides of the coin, but i think the real reasons are often over looked or avoided. People are scared of the truth sometimes.

 

[BloodSword]

Columbine was a tradgedy of the highest magnitude, children killing children. I believe everything that occurs in our lives is meant to happen, for one reason or another. It took the shootings at Columbine to open the eyes of this bleak society and raunch culture that prevails in America today. When I was a kid, shootings and stabbings were unheard of in younger people lives. We always settled things with our fists one on one. I firmly believe that good and responsible behaviour starts at home. Parents must take a more active role in their child's upbringing. Quit blaming films, music and books for their demise. To the parents on this forum: are you really doing all you can for your child? Are you doing enough to prevent another atrocity like Columbine? I strongly believe this is where the answer lies. Within ourselves. Peace.

 

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

adressing columbine
the thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that there were explosives present and also that if the explosives had gone off everyone on the school's entire property would have died instantly
if this scenario had happened, eric harris's parents and dylan klebold's parents would never have known that their kids were involved in the explosion
and i think that Eminim realized this when he asked "where were the parents at?" (song lyric following the lyric about how Marylin Manson was being blamed for Columbine)
when Eric's parents and Dylan's parents first heard about the school shooting all 4 of them should have immediately known with absolute certainty that their kids were responsible

 

[Neith]

I think that although a lot of how a child copes with life is reflected from the way they've been brought up, it is a bit unfair to be able to expect that the parents can stop their kids losing the plot, so to speak. Bullying is a huge problem that parents are pretty much powerless over. School's are the ones to blame here, but even then the schools are quite powerless to prevent bullying because of all the human rights shit and so on that the government throws at everyone.

 

[NeverIsForever]

no, i do not consider bullying a valid excuse for killing someone
fortunately, neither does US law

 

[infoterror]

I think bullying might be what sets the situation off, but it's not the reason. The reason is that adults are distracted by a boring world of function, and nobody thinks about higher values anymore, which hits adolescents hardest. In this respect, adolescents are far smarter and more hopeful than adults, which is why school shootings are doubly tragic: many of the kids doing the shooting were potential heroes in other areas, were our society not dysfunctional.

 

[Norsemaiden]

no, i do not consider bullying a valid excuse for killing someone
fortunately, neither does US law

Although of course I agree that school shootings are very wrong, it is important to remember that many more children commit suicide because of being bullied than fatally attack bullies, and if any of these victims figured that they would like to take their enemy out first, as they didn't want to give their enemy the satisfaction of knowing they'd driven them to suicide, I could sympathise.

 

[The Devil's Steed]

Although of course I agree that school shootings are very wrong, it is important to remember that many more children commit suicide because of being bullied than fatally attack bullies, and if any of these victims figured that they would like to take their enemy out first, as they didn't want to give their enemy the satisfaction of knowing they'd driven them to suicide, I could sympathise.

I think that sort of thinking is a large part of it, however, when it comes to doing random shootings it turns from a "take you down with me" idealism to a case of what's likely madness.

 

[Lord SteveO]

Agree with you there.


There's a hell of a difference between shooting person X because they bully you at school, and taking a gun to school and killing 10 random people because of said bullying.

 

[Death Animal]

Yeah I can unterstand how it feel to be picket in school.
It didn´t happen long time put it did suck.
But I didn´t shoot anybody
I did go to gym and got some strenght And I did realy kick theyr ass.

 

[Norsemaiden]

There is no definate conclusion to the question of to what extent viewing violence on TV or playing violent video games causes real violence in society, but it seems likely that it does have such an effect. Billions of pounds are spent on TV adverts to influence people to buy a product. Most viewers are oblivious to the extent that it affects their choice of what to buy, but the fact that so much money is spent on advertising shows that it must be bringing in results. It seems that some people are affected far more than others. This site has some interesting things to say about the influence of violent TV on behaviour: http://interact.uoregon.edu/Medialit/mlr/readings/articles/front.html

 

[infoterror]

There's a hell of a difference between shooting person X because they bully you at school, and taking a gun to school and killing 10 random people because of said bullying.

They're not random people.

They are those who endorsed the bullying by benefitting, supporting and encouraging a corrupt system that empowers that bullying.

Bullying of the worst kind doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens when there's a privileged class like football players who reign through popularity (democracy).

If you haven't gone to an American public high school, this thread is meaningless to you.

 

[infoterror]

There is no definate conclusion to the question of to what extent viewing violence on TV or playing violent video games causes real violence in society, but it seems likely that it does have such an effect.

Maybe not cause, but reinforce.

Our governments resorting to violence for @#$@#$@#-up reasons is a worse influence I think.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Maybe not cause, but reinforce.

Our governments resorting to violence for @#$@#$@#-up reasons is a worse influence I think.

Reinforce yes. Could it be that the government wants the population desensitsed to violence so that we don't object so much to wars or appreciate the horrors of war? This could make people less likely to protest against wars.

 

[infoterror]

Reinforce yes. Could it be that the government wants the population desensitsed to violence so that we don't object so much to wars or appreciate the horrors of war? This could make people less likely to protest against wars.

Respectfully, I don't think anyone has thought it out that much. Television has always been a moneymaker and a pacifier, and that's convenient, so no one has reason to stop it

 

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

I think that although a lot of how a child copes with life is reflected from the way they've been brought up, it is a bit unfair to be able to expect that the parents can stop their kids losing the plot, so to speak. Bullying is a huge problem that parents are pretty much powerless over. School's are the ones to blame here, but even then the schools are quite powerless to prevent bullying because of all the human rights shit and so on that the government throws at everyone.

i'm not saying that the parents should have prevented the columbine incident, that's asking american parents to be mature and responsible adults in a way that just doesn't happen in america, i'm just saying that when it happened the parents of eric and dylan should have instantaniously with absolute certainty known that their kids were responsible, which i believe is a much more reasonable expectation