School Shootings

Remove all ads!

As far as the video games arguments I find it quite laughable. What do they think children did before video games?

Let me recall, I would have to say that we played more often with action figures - which was always pretty violent at least when my friends and I did so.

How about the old thing of playing Cowboys and Indians/soldiers/knights/fort/spacemen and aliens/whatever - now we actually have the children pretending to fight, shoot, and kill each other.

Of course there were more sports/games - many of which involved a high degree of rough housing. When I was in grade school our idea of a fun time during the lunch break was to have a giant melee with as many of the boys as we could get together. Of course they won't stand that anymore - it is too violent for the politically correct crowd's sensibilities. Also, if someone gets a few bruises and scrapes playing then the parents go ape about it these days where as it was pretty much expected back then.

O.K. maybe the girls would play some less violent games but a lot of the ones I knew wanted to be right in the thick of things with the boys.

 

Well, there is at least one that got some guns more than you got. And I bet that if you lived in Italy, getting a gun and go hunting would be way easier for you then doing the same in Maryland.

I think cross-country comparisons on how things actually are are extremley difficult and one has to evaluate and consider many things, because things tend to be different.

Now, on the internet you can find many Americans citing statistics from my very own country to prove, that guns really aren't to blame. I think this NRA habit is awful and annoying, as I am sure that gun-laws are at the same time stricter and way more relaxed. It's more a balance thing.

 

Yes exactly, that was the whole point of listing all these cliches. Most people do these things (ie - myself, well maybe I don't go around worshipping Neo-Nazis/Satan/Demogorgon or whatever but I do draw violent comics), yet do not go on killing sprees. There were a few screws loose to begin with. Not everyone has a perfectly functional brain. He probably died thinking he was the Punisher or something. So why did he do it? He was a nutter, plain and simple.

 

I think it comes down to ego and celebrity culture...

We are tought that nothing is worse than being unimportant and ignored.

Regardless of the moral implications of what he did, he is now a very important person to a large number of people...

 

@ Rally

You won't get anything but agreement from me. I was making the point that parents are a rather important part of a child's life, and play a fair role in shaping a child's personality, and so if you're going to list things such as violent media as a cause for school shootings, parents should probably be on your list too.

@Abom

Have you been to a high school weight room recently? Some of those kids are damned strong. I can recall seeing one guy in particular doing 1000 pound leg presses while he was in eleventh grade.

 

And to me, this is no less serious an issue. The outcomes are different, yes, and that difference is the result of access to firearms; however, the sort of kid who kills pets is much more likely to grow up into a man who kills people. Instead of killing at 15 or 16, this kid might be doing it at 26 or 27. Delinquency is one thing (and to be honest, I consider it perfectly normal), but the sort of things that would drive a kid to such behaviour is at the heart of my question. I didn't choose my words carefully, it seems.

No, I'm not. I wasn't concerned about what makes specifically US kids act in violent ways, but why successive generations seem to be getting aggressive earlier and earlier. It isn't only in the US. After all, twentysomething killers, rapists and university shooters are nothing new. I admit that it isn't clear from the original post, and that's my fault. However, I increasingly get the feeling that we're arguing over semantics, because I seem to be agreeing with you about everything else.

I don't disagree. I think, however, that to make such blanket statements is a bit naive, Tal. It assumes that there is no difference except guns, rather than assuming that there is little idiosyncratic difference (which is closer to the truth). It sucks being a teenage male who's not popular or good at something culturally significant (I was there not so long ago) no matter where you are. So why is it that some kids go on a killing spree, or torture or slaughter animals, and some don't? I honestly don't believe the answer is so straightforward.

Agreed.

 

I don't even know where I would go to get a gun now, let alone when I was a kid. I have never seen a gun in a shop or at anybody's house. Maybe I've just lived a sheltered life.

 

There are ~1,8 mil legal guns in Finland (pop ~5 mil), but I can't recall a single case of school shootings. Saying that, a friend of mine shot himself with his fathers hunting rifle. In another case my best friends neighbour accidentally shot his friend, while playing with a hunting rifle in his parents bedroom. That's my chilhood in a quiet and safe little part of the world.

 

Oh please. We're talking about teenagers here. About the only thing you can do to secure a gun from a child is to lock it up somewhere. But when we're talking about teenagers, they are smart enough to figure out where you put the key to the gun case. In fact, this kid probably saw his grandfather get the key to get into the gun case many times in his life, and knew exactly how to get the key. I have no idea how else one would secure a firearm.

As far as I'm concerned, there are three ways for a teenager to get their hands on a gun:

1. Illegal purchase (illegal by definition)
2. Taking it from someone without their knowledge (again illegal)
3. Someone who is able to own a gun gives it to them (making them complicit in the act).

For the first two the onus is on the kid, not the adult, and in the last case, if his grandfather actually GAVE him the gun, then to prison he's going.

When I said it's not easy to get a gun, I meant to actually buy one off the street - anything beyond a Saturday Night Special gets a little pricey.

 

Sticker: I think there are more legal guns in Chicago than in all of Finland -- and that's just the LEGAL guns....

In rural communities you may even have 2-3 guns per PERSON (my in-laws have four guns in their house and they're not even gun enthusiasts).

 

What on earth is the point of having 2-3 guns per person? This all sounds just like Bowling for Columbine.

To the best of my knowledge, I have NEVER met anyone who owns a gun.

 

One of the things I've noticed about the school shootings, is that the children pulling the triggers were often bullied. Severely bullied by "popular" children. Often the bullying crosses the line into assult or worse.

The school does nothing to help, parents are either not involved or abusive also.

And yes, these children have social interaction issues. They are deemed to be ugly, or wierd.

Eventually the children do explode, some times in horrific manners.

I was a victim of school bullying. I spent a year fighting off would be rapists in front of classmates and teachers who wouldn't do anything. I exploded... But I didn't use a gun. Instead I started fighting back, sending these kids flying across the room. They learned to leave me alone. They never were punished by the school.

So, I think some of the blame lands square in the lap of the schools who allow jocks and other populars abuse other students because they are on the football team or mumsy and daddy have money.

Does that make the shooters right? No. However, I also can understand where they are coming from. if I had not been trained in the martial arts, I would have been raped in school. And if that had happened... I might have gone for that extreme measure. I don't know.

 

@ T2Bruno

Gun politics in Finland.

I'm just saying that people should take a look at their own gunlaws before they start condemning the US.