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The root cause may be bullying and ostracization combined with the media contagion effect. This is a repeating pattern. Bullying: https://www.washingtonpost.co

The root cause may be bullying and ostracization combined with the media contagion effect. This is a repeating pattern. Bullying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-gunman/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texa... The gunman in Tuesday’s elementary school massacre was a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and lashed out violently against peers and strangers recently and over the years, friends and relatives said In middle school and junior high, Ramos was bullied for having a stutter and a strong lisp, friends and family said. Stephen Garcia, who considered himself Ramos’s best friend in eighth grade, said Ramos didn’t have it easy in school. “He would get bullied hard, like bullied by a lot of people”. Ramos’s cousin Mia said she saw students mock his speech impediment when they attended middle school together. He’d brush it off in the moment, Mia said, then complain later to his grandmother that he didn’t want to go back to school. Contagion: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-shootings-are-contagious/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mass-shootings-ar...

dragontamer 4y ago
Are there no Bullies in say, the United Kingdom? The big difference between UK and USA is the number of guns we have in our country compared to theirs. We probably can't stop bullying, but we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country.
- jka 4y ago
  Supporting dragontamer's claim regarding number of firearms: According to a report[1] by Small Arms Survey in 2017, there were an estimated 120 civilian firmarms per 100 people in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... That's almost twice as many as the next-closest nation. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smalla...
  - freediver 4y ago
    This argument would be obvious if USA had say twice the number of school shootings as the next-closes nation but it has ~36x [1] What gives? https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-sh...
    - jka 4y ago
      A theory: the number of firearms (which translates into how accessible they are) isn't a linear scaling factor in the problem. Comparative population could be relevant, although also doesn't explain the statistics you reference. To try to prove/disprove the argument: has the prevalence (or nature) of bullying changed?
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      That would be true if we assume the effect is linear, but why should it be? Is there evidence of linearity?
      - chroma 4y ago
        If the relationship were superlinear, then we'd expect to see much higher rates of mass shootings in places like Montana or Wyoming (where >60% of households have guns) and lower rates in California (where ~20% of households have guns). This does not seem to be the case.
        jka 4y ago
        There is a correlation chart[1] of gun ownership and gun deaths per state for 2013 in this article: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-study-one-in-three/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-stud... (correlation does not explain causation, but it may help to guide analysis) [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20211204010352/https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/gun-ownership-vs-gun-deaths_2.png https://web.archive.org/web/20211204010352/https://www.mothe...
- deleted 4y ago
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- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure there are bullies in Serbia, too, and fraught home conditions. And there are the guns. What's missing? onesafari said: > The root cause may be bullying combined with the media contagion effect. You need the bullying (or other oppressive social condition) and the media contagion. And, as you say, you need the massive amounts of guns. > but we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country. It is not clear to me that your statement is true. Given the Second Amendment, given the Supreme Court (and, in particular, the current makeup of the Supreme Court), I'm not sure what can be done. If you see a path, we'd all love to see the plan...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Auracle 4y ago
    Nobody ever talks about restricting the first amendment instead of the second, but it would be just as effective for mass shootings. But we probably wouldn’t even need to restrict it. If the president and other politicians shamed every media company that named the shooter when this happens we could probably make some progress.
- Zak 4y ago
  > we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country Can we? AnimalMuppet already mentioned the legal barriers, but there's another issue: the US is currently suffering from extreme political polarization which has already led to an insurrection. How do you think that would interact with an attempt at mass confiscation[0] of guns? I fear such a policy any time in the near future would spark a civil war, leading to many times more deaths than all the school shootings added together. [0] I read your post as implying mass confiscation. Simply restricting the purchase of new guns would take many decades to significantly reduce the number of guns in circulation.
  - panarky 4y ago
    > Can we? We can't solve this problem because we're all talking about highly theoretical and utopian solutions that don't account for actually existing realities. The left says "no guns". The right says "more guns". The US constitution says "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Yes, there's a preface about a well regulated militia, and yes, people were using muskets when it was written, but the Supreme Court has ruled that this confers an individual right to possess modern firearms. And the Supreme Court is even more right-wing now, and likely to force blue states to loosen their gun laws to look more like red states. So maybe we'd have a more productive conversation if we talked about what's possible in the actually existing United States instead of dreaming about Australia's successes, because there's zero probability that we'll be able to learn from Australia.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      > The left says "no guns". The right says "more guns". The left actually says "more background checks", though there are an unreasonable group that goes for absolutely no guns. There's also the questions about what to do with aftermarket triggers that allow for burst-firing or even fully-automatic firing, which are legal right now (and were used in the Las Vegas mass shooting attack). Banning certain items (ex: large-capacity magazines, trigger-mods, bump-stocks and the like) would still be an improvement.
      - 4y ago
- cryptodan 4y ago
  I was bullied and still am. I have used and owned guns since I was 4. I haven't once thought about killing another person, and I too suffered from a speech impediment and didn't have it easy in school. The difference between me and these mass shooters is that I was told to use that as strengths and to use it to make myself better. I have and successfully done so. The mass shooters as of late feel like this is the only way to settle their rage and anger. It's rather sad. The issue isn't guns the issue is the crumbling family and tge degradation of society. We humans are nothing but animals down to the core. If a person wants to kill they will find a way. Another issue in the USA is the lacking mental Healthcare that other nations have. Many are afraid to seek mental health help because of the stigma of looking weak, much like men not reporting rape or sexual assault that they experience. Also couple that with covid19 lockdowns and that gives these at risk people lots of time to think, plan, and execute. At this time its far to late for them. As a result you get more mass shootings.
  - freediver 4y ago
    Thanks for sharing that, sorry to hear the situation but really interesting thoughts. In your opinion what lead to the crumbling of the institution of family, that did not happen in other countries?
    - IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
      Not parent, but my thoughts: - Decline of religion/spirituality is more pronounced in usa. - More dual working parent homes (due to free labor markets). I also suspect that while real incomes have risen, actual disposable income has decreased, which pressures households into dual working arrangements. This means less time invested by parents in kids. - institutional rot of public education . As some poster said, school bureaucracy is now defacto enabler of bullying - by doing nothing when observed... and punishing teachers that actually try. - the internet has cracked the authority of social groups, with more time spent online and people more fractured among niche interests. This means less oversight and more activities happening without a concerted response by the group
      - 4y ago
- soneil 4y ago
  I grew up in the UK, before I moved to the US. In the UK, I was taught that a solid punch was the solution to bullying. I fear the issue in the US is just a very disturbing take on a solid punch. You're relentlessly taught through film and media that a good guy with a gun, probably crawling through an air duct, is that solid punch. I was taught to just hit them. In the face. On the nose. Even if you lose, just hit them. I fear this message has lost something in translation.
  - denimnerd42 4y ago
    With zero tolerance policies a punch will get you a two week suspension on your "permanent" school record while the bully will get a day or nothing.
    - dfee 4y ago
      Yeah, but (pardon my French) who the fuck cares? Straight-A valedictorian reporting in. I’d’ve advised middle school me that this (a punch to the nose) couldn’t be a worse resolution. With crap middle school administration, the bullied are ending up in detention (or worse) while the provocateurs are getting away without repercussion.
      - trevcanhuman 4y ago
        I agree. Yet part of the problem is that your future kinda depends on it. You could be cataloged as having 'mental issues' for punching a guy in the face, even if it was for self defense. But yeah, I guess your point still stands since we've lost our sense of what's right and standing up for ourselves. The "Fine, I'll do it myself" meme would definitely apply here.
      - denimnerd42 4y ago
        My middle school grades and teacher recommendations got me into an elite high school. If I had thrown punches at bullies, got suspended, missed test, etc.. I wouldn't have had that opportunity. Most people's middle school grades are probably useless but I dunno maybe they get them into a higher track in 9th grade like AP courses and stuff vs remedial work.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > Are there no Bullies in say, the United Kingdom? Quite possibly, not much. It's something that varies a lot from one culture to another, and you need a lot of it, unchecked for years to destroy a person.
bediger4000 4y ago
There's an amazing amount of "anti-bullying" education that goes on. I've got 4 kids and they all got many hours of anti-bullying. The issue there is that the solution is (at least in Denver Public Schools) that the burden is put squarely on the students. The message is that only students can prevent bullying. My experience is that teachers and administrators absolutely will not intervene. One of those 4 kids was getting picked on/bullied, sometimes directly in front of a teacher. Who did nothing. The only times I got any help from schools was when an actual, observable injury, like broken skin, appeared. Other than that, my bullied kid just experienced "restorative justice" where the bully refused to show up, and therefore nothing changed.
- grapeskin 4y ago
  Yeah. You can teach kids that bullying is bad, but if there’s nobody to actually enforce anything and show that there are consequences for bullying, kids quickly learn that there’s really no reason not to mess with people. Bullying is often an easy way for kids to be funny and move up the social ladder, if just a little bit. Unfortunately, the “meme” that teachers only step in when the victim fights back is very true. I’ve witnessed it myself (thankfully I wasn’t a victim) and everyone I know did as well. Bullying victims are punished by every level of society—it’s not hard to imagine that some of them lash out and want revenge. That’s not to justify shootings at all. But people who suffer years of abuse, especially during childhood, can’t imagine a better life because they’ve never experienced one. An irrational act of terrorism to us is a rational act of balancing the scales to them.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  Yup this is a lot of the problem, we stopped being able to discipline kids and they can be really nasty when left unchecked.
  - bediger4000 4y ago
    Denver Public Schools will discipline kids, just not for bullying. Apparently the victims are supposed to deal with it, which I think is logically inconsistent. If the victim could deal with it, they would. Victim is still getting bullied, therefore they can't do it.
skyde 4y ago
This is my usual thinking also but in this case, I don"t think the 18 years old shooter was victim of bullying from elementary school kid.
coding123 4y ago
Bullying doesn't even describe half of it. There are many people who feel abandoned by everyone. It's extremely lonely for some people, especially in today's age where the default is NOT to go hang out in person with friends. The default is staring down at your phone and getting hooked on messaging and media tunnels.
- coffeecat 4y ago
  I think this is the correct answer. Guns enable these incidents, but they're of course not the root cause. Bullying is a common motivation, but I don't think it's exactly the root cause either. It can be seen as a mental health issue, but I don't think that's the most instructive analytical lens. The problem is our lack of social fabric. Kids don't have enough friends. They spend too much time looking at screens, and they can't imagine positive futures that they'd like to live out. They don't have enough guidance from parents and other adults to put them on a more positive path.
- prawn 4y ago
  There was an article in recent months about the loss of communal spaces for adolescents. Put a group of teenagers in a park just hanging out, and a suspicious local will dob them in as loitering. Play a noisy game of football and someone reports it. Other places are pay-to-play. Or have alcohol and designed for adults. This isn't the one I was thinking about, but is on the same topic: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43323577 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43323577
trevcanhuman 4y ago
I think you have a great point, yet something that I haven't seen anyone talk about is scale. The scale of the schools in the United States is enormous. I hear about 2000,3000, 5000-student schools. Some family's studied in the U.S., and even their middle school and elementary is 2000 students ! That's enormous, gigantic! Here in Mexico schools are small-scale. Education here is much, much smaller scale. I think that the bigger the student population is at the campus, the bigger the chances are of failing at important problems such as bullying, since extreme standardization of these processes creates more problems than genuine solutions. Plus.
- copperx 4y ago
  As someone who studied high school in Mexico and the US and saw students get bullied in both, cultural issues at play make all the difference. Even the most vicious bullies had a sense of "oh crap, we've gone too far" in my Mexican high school. I saw the students defend the bullied kid at both schools, but in Mexico, both bullies and the rest of the students showed some compassion towards the bullied. And the bullied got to play soccer with the other students during recess. The bullied were never wholly ostracised. In contrast, when the other students defended the bullied in the US school, there was this feeling of "you should fend for yourself; nobody is going to help you. You're on your own." It's hard to explain, but that's what I felt being a spectator. All this is just my n=1 experience, and I could be misreading things, but I'm convinced there's a cultural element that can explain the helplessness of bullied kids in the US school system.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    I feel you are on to something. I think that on top of those other things, the last straw is that the U.S. society is much less integrated. My neighbors have said 3 words to me the last 10 years I lived here (moved from Europe). Where I come from the whole town would know the troubled kid, would either step in before the bullying got really bad, or sure as heck would not let the kid buy a machine gun. Maybe the problem with the US is that the society is just too free. Or not enough churchgoing.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
It almost sounds like he's the victim in your mind...just consider that there are millions of people that are bullied, and people with mental illness that do not do anything close to this. He targeted little kids. An obivious ego driven attempt at grandizing the scale of his revenge. This was all about him. A purely selfish act. Exaggerated to a scale to mock life itself.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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thentherewere2 4y ago
Family members are rationalizing why he might have done this after the fact. Inferring a causal effect from bullying to murdering children from family member testimony seems very biased.
natsup123490 4y ago
Kids get bullied everywhere, in every culture. It's part of growing up. I have no comment on the contagion effect.
mahastore 4y ago
bogomipz 4y ago
There's a paper that was presented at an American Psychology Association conference on the media contagion effect. I think this might actually be the original study. It mentions "Profiles of shooters indicate that they are often socially isolated and suffer a pattern of ostracization or bullying, yet they tend toward narcissism."[1] It also mentions that these three traits - depression, social isolation and pathological narcissism are largely intertwined. [1] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contag...
- prawn 4y ago
  I'd say there are a number of angles from which to tackle the gun violence problem, but this would surely be one of them. Plus, worth dealing with independent of guns anyway. I wonder if there are links (including inverse relationships) between depression/isolation and classroom sizes or intensity of curriculum or single-sex schools. High school puts hormonal teenagers in a competitive environment every week day for hours; not everyone will cope well with that crucible. Is there a stronger element of the individual and individual glory/success/achievement in the US than other countries that might explain the narcissism?

dragontamer 4y ago

Are there no Bullies in say, the United Kingdom? The big difference between UK and USA is the number of guns we have in our country compared to theirs. We probably can't stop bullying, but we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country.

jka 4y ago
Supporting dragontamer's claim regarding number of firearms: According to a report[1] by Small Arms Survey in 2017, there were an estimated 120 civilian firmarms per 100 people in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... That's almost twice as many as the next-closest nation. [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smalla...
- freediver 4y ago
  This argument would be obvious if USA had say twice the number of school shootings as the next-closes nation but it has ~36x [1] What gives? https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-shootings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/school-sh...
  - jka 4y ago
    A theory: the number of firearms (which translates into how accessible they are) isn't a linear scaling factor in the problem. Comparative population could be relevant, although also doesn't explain the statistics you reference. To try to prove/disprove the argument: has the prevalence (or nature) of bullying changed?
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    That would be true if we assume the effect is linear, but why should it be? Is there evidence of linearity?
    - chroma 4y ago
      If the relationship were superlinear, then we'd expect to see much higher rates of mass shootings in places like Montana or Wyoming (where >60% of households have guns) and lower rates in California (where ~20% of households have guns). This does not seem to be the case.
      - jka 4y ago
        There is a correlation chart[1] of gun ownership and gun deaths per state for 2013 in this article: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-study-one-in-three/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/gun-owners-stud... (correlation does not explain causation, but it may help to guide analysis) [1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20211204010352/https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/gun-ownership-vs-gun-deaths_2.png https://web.archive.org/web/20211204010352/https://www.mothe...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
I'm pretty sure there are bullies in Serbia, too, and fraught home conditions. And there are the guns. What's missing? onesafari said: > The root cause may be bullying combined with the media contagion effect. You need the bullying (or other oppressive social condition) and the media contagion. And, as you say, you need the massive amounts of guns. > but we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country. It is not clear to me that your statement is true. Given the Second Amendment, given the Supreme Court (and, in particular, the current makeup of the Supreme Court), I'm not sure what can be done. If you see a path, we'd all love to see the plan...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Auracle 4y ago
  Nobody ever talks about restricting the first amendment instead of the second, but it would be just as effective for mass shootings. But we probably wouldn’t even need to restrict it. If the president and other politicians shamed every media company that named the shooter when this happens we could probably make some progress.
Zak 4y ago
> we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country Can we? AnimalMuppet already mentioned the legal barriers, but there's another issue: the US is currently suffering from extreme political polarization which has already led to an insurrection. How do you think that would interact with an attempt at mass confiscation[0] of guns? I fear such a policy any time in the near future would spark a civil war, leading to many times more deaths than all the school shootings added together. [0] I read your post as implying mass confiscation. Simply restricting the purchase of new guns would take many decades to significantly reduce the number of guns in circulation.
- panarky 4y ago
  > Can we? We can't solve this problem because we're all talking about highly theoretical and utopian solutions that don't account for actually existing realities. The left says "no guns". The right says "more guns". The US constitution says "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Yes, there's a preface about a well regulated militia, and yes, people were using muskets when it was written, but the Supreme Court has ruled that this confers an individual right to possess modern firearms. And the Supreme Court is even more right-wing now, and likely to force blue states to loosen their gun laws to look more like red states. So maybe we'd have a more productive conversation if we talked about what's possible in the actually existing United States instead of dreaming about Australia's successes, because there's zero probability that we'll be able to learn from Australia.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > The left says "no guns". The right says "more guns". The left actually says "more background checks", though there are an unreasonable group that goes for absolutely no guns. There's also the questions about what to do with aftermarket triggers that allow for burst-firing or even fully-automatic firing, which are legal right now (and were used in the Las Vegas mass shooting attack). Banning certain items (ex: large-capacity magazines, trigger-mods, bump-stocks and the like) would still be an improvement.
    - 4y ago
cryptodan 4y ago
I was bullied and still am. I have used and owned guns since I was 4. I haven't once thought about killing another person, and I too suffered from a speech impediment and didn't have it easy in school. The difference between me and these mass shooters is that I was told to use that as strengths and to use it to make myself better. I have and successfully done so. The mass shooters as of late feel like this is the only way to settle their rage and anger. It's rather sad. The issue isn't guns the issue is the crumbling family and tge degradation of society. We humans are nothing but animals down to the core. If a person wants to kill they will find a way. Another issue in the USA is the lacking mental Healthcare that other nations have. Many are afraid to seek mental health help because of the stigma of looking weak, much like men not reporting rape or sexual assault that they experience. Also couple that with covid19 lockdowns and that gives these at risk people lots of time to think, plan, and execute. At this time its far to late for them. As a result you get more mass shootings.
- freediver 4y ago
  Thanks for sharing that, sorry to hear the situation but really interesting thoughts. In your opinion what lead to the crumbling of the institution of family, that did not happen in other countries?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
    Not parent, but my thoughts: - Decline of religion/spirituality is more pronounced in usa. - More dual working parent homes (due to free labor markets). I also suspect that while real incomes have risen, actual disposable income has decreased, which pressures households into dual working arrangements. This means less time invested by parents in kids. - institutional rot of public education . As some poster said, school bureaucracy is now defacto enabler of bullying - by doing nothing when observed... and punishing teachers that actually try. - the internet has cracked the authority of social groups, with more time spent online and people more fractured among niche interests. This means less oversight and more activities happening without a concerted response by the group
    - 4y ago
soneil 4y ago
I grew up in the UK, before I moved to the US. In the UK, I was taught that a solid punch was the solution to bullying. I fear the issue in the US is just a very disturbing take on a solid punch. You're relentlessly taught through film and media that a good guy with a gun, probably crawling through an air duct, is that solid punch. I was taught to just hit them. In the face. On the nose. Even if you lose, just hit them. I fear this message has lost something in translation.
- denimnerd42 4y ago
  With zero tolerance policies a punch will get you a two week suspension on your "permanent" school record while the bully will get a day or nothing.
  - dfee 4y ago
    Yeah, but (pardon my French) who the fuck cares? Straight-A valedictorian reporting in. I’d’ve advised middle school me that this (a punch to the nose) couldn’t be a worse resolution. With crap middle school administration, the bullied are ending up in detention (or worse) while the provocateurs are getting away without repercussion.
    - trevcanhuman 4y ago
      I agree. Yet part of the problem is that your future kinda depends on it. You could be cataloged as having 'mental issues' for punching a guy in the face, even if it was for self defense. But yeah, I guess your point still stands since we've lost our sense of what's right and standing up for ourselves. The "Fine, I'll do it myself" meme would definitely apply here.
    - denimnerd42 4y ago
      My middle school grades and teacher recommendations got me into an elite high school. If I had thrown punches at bullies, got suspended, missed test, etc.. I wouldn't have had that opportunity. Most people's middle school grades are probably useless but I dunno maybe they get them into a higher track in 9th grade like AP courses and stuff vs remedial work.
marcosdumay 4y ago
> Are there no Bullies in say, the United Kingdom? Quite possibly, not much. It's something that varies a lot from one culture to another, and you need a lot of it, unchecked for years to destroy a person.

bediger4000 4y ago

There's an amazing amount of "anti-bullying" education that goes on. I've got 4 kids and they all got many hours of anti-bullying. The issue there is that the solution is (at least in Denver Public Schools) that the burden is put squarely on the students. The message is that only students can prevent bullying. My experience is that teachers and administrators absolutely will not intervene. One of those 4 kids was getting picked on/bullied, sometimes directly in front of a teacher. Who did nothing. The only times I got any help from schools was when an actual, observable injury, like broken skin, appeared. Other than that, my bullied kid just experienced "restorative justice" where the bully refused to show up, and therefore nothing changed.

grapeskin 4y ago
Yeah. You can teach kids that bullying is bad, but if there’s nobody to actually enforce anything and show that there are consequences for bullying, kids quickly learn that there’s really no reason not to mess with people. Bullying is often an easy way for kids to be funny and move up the social ladder, if just a little bit. Unfortunately, the “meme” that teachers only step in when the victim fights back is very true. I’ve witnessed it myself (thankfully I wasn’t a victim) and everyone I know did as well. Bullying victims are punished by every level of society—it’s not hard to imagine that some of them lash out and want revenge. That’s not to justify shootings at all. But people who suffer years of abuse, especially during childhood, can’t imagine a better life because they’ve never experienced one. An irrational act of terrorism to us is a rational act of balancing the scales to them.
mountainriver 4y ago
Yup this is a lot of the problem, we stopped being able to discipline kids and they can be really nasty when left unchecked.
- bediger4000 4y ago
  Denver Public Schools will discipline kids, just not for bullying. Apparently the victims are supposed to deal with it, which I think is logically inconsistent. If the victim could deal with it, they would. Victim is still getting bullied, therefore they can't do it.

skyde 4y ago

This is my usual thinking also but in this case, I don"t think the 18 years old shooter was victim of bullying from elementary school kid.

coding123 4y ago

Bullying doesn't even describe half of it. There are many people who feel abandoned by everyone. It's extremely lonely for some people, especially in today's age where the default is NOT to go hang out in person with friends. The default is staring down at your phone and getting hooked on messaging and media tunnels.

coffeecat 4y ago
I think this is the correct answer. Guns enable these incidents, but they're of course not the root cause. Bullying is a common motivation, but I don't think it's exactly the root cause either. It can be seen as a mental health issue, but I don't think that's the most instructive analytical lens. The problem is our lack of social fabric. Kids don't have enough friends. They spend too much time looking at screens, and they can't imagine positive futures that they'd like to live out. They don't have enough guidance from parents and other adults to put them on a more positive path.
prawn 4y ago
There was an article in recent months about the loss of communal spaces for adolescents. Put a group of teenagers in a park just hanging out, and a suspicious local will dob them in as loitering. Play a noisy game of football and someone reports it. Other places are pay-to-play. Or have alcohol and designed for adults. This isn't the one I was thinking about, but is on the same topic: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43323577 https://www.jstor.org/stable/43323577

trevcanhuman 4y ago

I think you have a great point, yet something that I haven't seen anyone talk about is scale. The scale of the schools in the United States is enormous. I hear about 2000,3000, 5000-student schools. Some family's studied in the U.S., and even their middle school and elementary is 2000 students ! That's enormous, gigantic! Here in Mexico schools are small-scale. Education here is much, much smaller scale. I think that the bigger the student population is at the campus, the bigger the chances are of failing at important problems such as bullying, since extreme standardization of these processes creates more problems than genuine solutions. Plus.

copperx 4y ago
As someone who studied high school in Mexico and the US and saw students get bullied in both, cultural issues at play make all the difference. Even the most vicious bullies had a sense of "oh crap, we've gone too far" in my Mexican high school. I saw the students defend the bullied kid at both schools, but in Mexico, both bullies and the rest of the students showed some compassion towards the bullied. And the bullied got to play soccer with the other students during recess. The bullied were never wholly ostracised. In contrast, when the other students defended the bullied in the US school, there was this feeling of "you should fend for yourself; nobody is going to help you. You're on your own." It's hard to explain, but that's what I felt being a spectator. All this is just my n=1 experience, and I could be misreading things, but I'm convinced there's a cultural element that can explain the helplessness of bullied kids in the US school system.
- foobarian 4y ago
  I feel you are on to something. I think that on top of those other things, the last straw is that the U.S. society is much less integrated. My neighbors have said 3 words to me the last 10 years I lived here (moved from Europe). Where I come from the whole town would know the troubled kid, would either step in before the bullying got really bad, or sure as heck would not let the kid buy a machine gun. Maybe the problem with the US is that the society is just too free. Or not enough churchgoing.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

It almost sounds like he's the victim in your mind...just consider that there are millions of people that are bullied, and people with mental illness that do not do anything close to this. He targeted little kids. An obivious ego driven attempt at grandizing the scale of his revenge. This was all about him. A purely selfish act. Exaggerated to a scale to mock life itself.

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thentherewere2 4y ago

Family members are rationalizing why he might have done this after the fact. Inferring a causal effect from bullying to murdering children from family member testimony seems very biased.

natsup123490 4y ago

Kids get bullied everywhere, in every culture. It's part of growing up. I have no comment on the contagion effect.

mahastore 4y ago

bogomipz 4y ago

There's a paper that was presented at an American Psychology Association conference on the media contagion effect. I think this might actually be the original study. It mentions "Profiles of shooters indicate that they are often socially isolated and suffer a pattern of ostracization or bullying, yet they tend toward narcissism."[1] It also mentions that these three traits - depression, social isolation and pathological narcissism are largely intertwined. [1] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contagion-effect.pdf https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contag...

prawn 4y ago
I'd say there are a number of angles from which to tackle the gun violence problem, but this would surely be one of them. Plus, worth dealing with independent of guns anyway. I wonder if there are links (including inverse relationships) between depression/isolation and classroom sizes or intensity of curriculum or single-sex schools. High school puts hormonal teenagers in a competitive environment every week day for hours; not everyone will cope well with that crucible. Is there a stronger element of the individual and individual glory/success/achievement in the US than other countries that might explain the narcissism?