5 ms·

This reads well-meaning, but ultimately misdirected. There is no solid data corroborating the "school shooters are bullied" narrative - in fact, many of them ha

This reads well-meaning, but ultimately misdirected. There is no solid data corroborating the "school shooters are bullied" narrative - in fact, many of them have a long history of being bullies themselves, which then gets twisted from "kids try to avoid the weird kid who does disturbing things" into "poor little baby had no friends". Disabled, queer, poor teens are not shooting up schools. The profile of a school shooter is overwhelmingly white, male and middle/upper class. A shooting is an ultimate tantrum for which the perpetrator is never held accountable.

smcl 4y ago
I often wonder how many of these open letters are read by the person they're directed at, presumably very few. I think some of the points they say make sense, and if they hung around on 4chan or 8chan and posted very abbreviated versions of these points, then that might at least reach some potential shooters. But posting on a substack is a bit like screaming into the void even if it was, as you say, well-meaning.
- hellofelicia 4y ago
  I mean, some of the OP's points seem to vacate a lot of responsibility from where it's due, so in that sense they would definitely speak to their target audience. Unfortunately, the reality is that there are often good reasons why young men who shoot up schools are excluded by their peers. If anything needs to be targeted, it's their ability to self-reflect on that and deal with (often not real but perceived) rejection and confrontation in a healthy way, but I doubt that this will go well.
drekipus 4y ago
> Disabled, queer, poor teens are not shooting up schools. Because 1. there's support networks for them, and 2. they don't have the resources themselves. The "white upperclass male" has the resources to do harm, and don't get supported. I keep thinking of Elliot Rodgers, who had a thought that girls owed it to him to date him. I don't think any of that was because he was white, male, or upper class. It was because he was lonely. And without proper socialisation and support he got further and further into the deep end. Males are violent but it can be channelled into positivity. It drives home why such divisive language doesn't help the situation. Obviously the whole "everything supports them every other day" isn't true, because of they were supported, they wouldn't be going through this mess. Or you can believe that it is due to inherent "whiteness", or "maleness", if you would like to continue to divide these kids further.
- hellofelicia 4y ago
  Many people are lonely, but only some of them shoot up little kids. Hell, I'd say most kids are bullied in some way or another at some point during their journey through school! It is important to reach out to all teens and address bullying for a multitude of reason, but the narrative of a misfit loner is just that, a narrative that most often falls apart during the investigation into the shooter's background. Elliot Rogers did not kill young women because he was lonely. He did it because he felt entitled to do that and lacked awareness into his own contribution to his loneliness. > Or you can believe that it is due to inherent "whiteness", or "maleness", if you would like to continue to divide these kids further. If whiteness and maleness doesn't contribute to this issue, how come this crime has such a distinctive perp profile? As far as I know, young women in the US are not banned from going to a gun shop and getting an AR-15 as soon as they turn 18, and have equal capacity to contract mental illness. The difference is they don't feel like they are owed something that the world hasn't given to them. This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue.
  - factcheckdec 4y ago
    You have a poisonous, race and gender obsessed world view.
  - igetspam 4y ago
    Another common thread for many of these shooters is violence or threats of violence toward women. It is sometimes discussed but doesn't get a lot of emphasis. In a society building on misogynistic ideals, it's easy to speculate on why that may be. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyny-dayton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyn... https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/30/wendy-murphy-texas-school-shooter-threatened-to-kill-and-rape-girls-in-online-messages-but-nobody-reported-him/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/30/wendy-murphy-texas-s... Here's where Red Flag laws could do a lot.
  - drekipus 4y ago
    > This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue I agree completely. And you're right on the Elliot Rogers part, I'm sorry that I wasn't quite clear on that. The issue was 100% the thought of being "owed" something. Perhaps trying to put another way: He thought he was owed something because he felt that he fit some profile of a young, handsome, gentleman, who's a son of an actor, and life doesn't follow scripts. My point is that if we keep saying "young white males have it all" when they don't, they will start to think "well why don't I feel complete, if I have it all?" - it's a genuine question. I think the answer is that we need to stop demonising "straight white males" lest they become demons*. I'm not saying that they don't fit the profile. I'm saying that it's not because they are white and male. Black males fit a distinctive criminal perpetrator profile as well, but it's not due to being black. You can't have one without the other. Either you believe this is due to their race or not. * I just recently had a newborn daughter, and my mother-in-law said something along these lines: whatever I call her: "princess", "monster", etc. is what she will become. I think it's the same thing here: the more we demonise and stigmatise "straight white males" the more there's going to be a lash back from young males who don't feel like they have the power you claim they have, yet.
ekianjo 4y ago
> there is not solid data you sure about your claim? > According to Lee (2013), there are two leading causes of school shootings: bullying (87%), as well as both non-compliance and side effects from psychiatric drugs (12%). Most school shooters claimed or left evidence behind indicating that they were victims of severe and long-term bullying. The majority of bullying victims experienced feelings of humiliation, which resulted in thoughts of suicide or revenge (Lee, 2013). https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school-shootings-and-student-mental-health.p https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school...
- hellofelicia 4y ago
  Yes, I'm actually pretty sure. Peter Langman, a very well known expert on the matter, sees no clear connection between bullying and shooting, also points out that many shooters were bullies themselves and don't target their supposed offenders: https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/bullying_school_shootings_1.1.pdf https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/bullying_sch... It's interesting that you quote that shooters "claimed" and "experienced feelings" of being ostracized, because many of them do indeed feel that way, like Elliot Rodgers thinking of himself as a perfect gentleman passed over by women for some incomprehensible reason despite clearly not being one. The catch is that those feelings are not always rooted in reality: many of them were well-liked and popular. What they also often turn out to be, though, is "injustice collectors" who tend to hold grudges and refuse to take responsibility for their own shortcomings (including, I assume, their own contribution to being excluded by others), according to this FBI report: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-school-shooter-school-shooter https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publicati...
- prawn 4y ago
  There was a Reddit thread in recent weeks about a related topic and there were a decent number of bullied males talking about how much they thought about shooting up their school. IMO, it's very possible that it's an intersection of bullied + having the means + propensity (for the most part, aggressive/aggrieved males).

smcl 4y ago

I often wonder how many of these open letters are read by the person they're directed at, presumably very few. I think some of the points they say make sense, and if they hung around on 4chan or 8chan and posted very abbreviated versions of these points, then that might at least reach some potential shooters. But posting on a substack is a bit like screaming into the void even if it was, as you say, well-meaning.

hellofelicia 4y ago
I mean, some of the OP's points seem to vacate a lot of responsibility from where it's due, so in that sense they would definitely speak to their target audience. Unfortunately, the reality is that there are often good reasons why young men who shoot up schools are excluded by their peers. If anything needs to be targeted, it's their ability to self-reflect on that and deal with (often not real but perceived) rejection and confrontation in a healthy way, but I doubt that this will go well.

drekipus 4y ago

> Disabled, queer, poor teens are not shooting up schools. Because 1. there's support networks for them, and 2. they don't have the resources themselves. The "white upperclass male" has the resources to do harm, and don't get supported. I keep thinking of Elliot Rodgers, who had a thought that girls owed it to him to date him. I don't think any of that was because he was white, male, or upper class. It was because he was lonely. And without proper socialisation and support he got further and further into the deep end. Males are violent but it can be channelled into positivity. It drives home why such divisive language doesn't help the situation. Obviously the whole "everything supports them every other day" isn't true, because of they were supported, they wouldn't be going through this mess. Or you can believe that it is due to inherent "whiteness", or "maleness", if you would like to continue to divide these kids further.

hellofelicia 4y ago
Many people are lonely, but only some of them shoot up little kids. Hell, I'd say most kids are bullied in some way or another at some point during their journey through school! It is important to reach out to all teens and address bullying for a multitude of reason, but the narrative of a misfit loner is just that, a narrative that most often falls apart during the investigation into the shooter's background. Elliot Rogers did not kill young women because he was lonely. He did it because he felt entitled to do that and lacked awareness into his own contribution to his loneliness. > Or you can believe that it is due to inherent "whiteness", or "maleness", if you would like to continue to divide these kids further. If whiteness and maleness doesn't contribute to this issue, how come this crime has such a distinctive perp profile? As far as I know, young women in the US are not banned from going to a gun shop and getting an AR-15 as soon as they turn 18, and have equal capacity to contract mental illness. The difference is they don't feel like they are owed something that the world hasn't given to them. This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue.
- factcheckdec 4y ago
  You have a poisonous, race and gender obsessed world view.
- igetspam 4y ago
  Another common thread for many of these shooters is violence or threats of violence toward women. It is sometimes discussed but doesn't get a lot of emphasis. In a society building on misogynistic ideals, it's easy to speculate on why that may be. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyny-dayton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyn... https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/30/wendy-murphy-texas-school-shooter-threatened-to-kill-and-rape-girls-in-online-messages-but-nobody-reported-him/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/30/wendy-murphy-texas-s... Here's where Red Flag laws could do a lot.
- drekipus 4y ago
  > This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue I agree completely. And you're right on the Elliot Rogers part, I'm sorry that I wasn't quite clear on that. The issue was 100% the thought of being "owed" something. Perhaps trying to put another way: He thought he was owed something because he felt that he fit some profile of a young, handsome, gentleman, who's a son of an actor, and life doesn't follow scripts. My point is that if we keep saying "young white males have it all" when they don't, they will start to think "well why don't I feel complete, if I have it all?" - it's a genuine question. I think the answer is that we need to stop demonising "straight white males" lest they become demons*. I'm not saying that they don't fit the profile. I'm saying that it's not because they are white and male. Black males fit a distinctive criminal perpetrator profile as well, but it's not due to being black. You can't have one without the other. Either you believe this is due to their race or not. * I just recently had a newborn daughter, and my mother-in-law said something along these lines: whatever I call her: "princess", "monster", etc. is what she will become. I think it's the same thing here: the more we demonise and stigmatise "straight white males" the more there's going to be a lash back from young males who don't feel like they have the power you claim they have, yet.

ekianjo 4y ago

> there is not solid data you sure about your claim? > According to Lee (2013), there are two leading causes of school shootings: bullying (87%), as well as both non-compliance and side effects from psychiatric drugs (12%). Most school shooters claimed or left evidence behind indicating that they were victims of severe and long-term bullying. The majority of bullying victims experienced feelings of humiliation, which resulted in thoughts of suicide or revenge (Lee, 2013). https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school-shootings-and-student-mental-health.p https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/school...

hellofelicia 4y ago
Yes, I'm actually pretty sure. Peter Langman, a very well known expert on the matter, sees no clear connection between bullying and shooting, also points out that many shooters were bullies themselves and don't target their supposed offenders: https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/bullying_school_shootings_1.1.pdf https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/bullying_sch... It's interesting that you quote that shooters "claimed" and "experienced feelings" of being ostracized, because many of them do indeed feel that way, like Elliot Rodgers thinking of himself as a perfect gentleman passed over by women for some incomprehensible reason despite clearly not being one. The catch is that those feelings are not always rooted in reality: many of them were well-liked and popular. What they also often turn out to be, though, is "injustice collectors" who tend to hold grudges and refuse to take responsibility for their own shortcomings (including, I assume, their own contribution to being excluded by others), according to this FBI report: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publications-school-shooter-school-shooter https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/stats-services-publicati...
prawn 4y ago
There was a Reddit thread in recent weeks about a related topic and there were a decent number of bullied males talking about how much they thought about shooting up their school. IMO, it's very possible that it's an intersection of bullied + having the means + propensity (for the most part, aggressive/aggrieved males).