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School Shooters

andrew

andrew

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Good article right up to the last sentence, which I don’t agree with. What I’m used to hearing about the situations (other than “guns are bad, mmmkay...“) is that the shooters unanimously (last time I checked) were on serious psych meds (thanks to our “there’s something wrong with your boy, let’s drug him“ culture). I’d like to know if anybody has researched the family situations of these ‘rioters’. Could anybody here point me toward a review of data regarding what sorts of families these young men typically come from?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/
 
Yeah, my suspicion is that not one of these guys had a loving, masculine father in the home, or even a halfway decent stepfather as a father figure.
 
andrew said:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/
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That is an interesting theory; that this is part of a spread out over time riot. I would not be surprised; public school is fundamentally a disfunctional social system which is traumatic to children in many many ways. We could blame the problem on broken homes and kids but they simply could be the most susceptible to the adverse affects of the system.

I have seen it pointed out that most of the mass shooters came from broken homes or single mothers; I haven't seen hard data on that but it would be in keeping with the stats on general criminality. I haven't heard that on this kid but there are early hints that his parents are separated. The media may well be actively covering up such evidences at this point on behalf of team woman. He comes from a mixed ethnic, mixed religion home with a father who traveled a lot for work so that can lead to identity and father issues.

Many many of the shooters have been on psych meds; including those known to cause suicidal violent aggression. That was pointed out 20 years ago but it took the FDA a while to admit to it (which they have).

Some have pointed to rootlessness being behind it. However this is the most insightful answer I've seen in 20 years of watching this unfold. I link to the archive version since quora stuck it behind a log in; too much un-PC truth apparently.

Why do almost all of the many school shooters/mass shooters fit the profile of young and socially dysfunctional male?
Jon Davis, Marine Corps weapons instructor

Have any of the “anti-bullying campaigns” of the last decade done a thing to combat the radically violent nature of mass shootings in schools?
People hate generalizations, but here you have a fairly undeniable one. School shootings regularly are perpetrated by almost exclusively males, either boys or young men, who have had severe socialization problems. I’m not even aware of a single female shooter in the lot. Following Columbine, schools began implementing “anti-bullying” campaigns, attempting to target everyday violence and general mean behavior among kids. Did that solve anything? Anything at all?
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I have the unfortunate distinction of personally knowing numerous families and people that were impacted in two of the school shootings, one family member having been in the circle where the shots were fired, and having one family member killed. That doesn’t give me any more insight into this than it does anyone else, as I didn’t know either of the shooters in these two incidents or their families. That said, I’ve considered this question a lot, and I think many of us are looking for “the answer”, and I think it is far more complicated than many expect it to be.

I strongly suspect all of the following are playing at least some role in this:
  • Broken families and the lack of strong male examples
  • Psych meds
  • The lack of a respect for God and the human life that was made in His image
  • The role of violent video games in reducing the emotion/impact of killing someone (see note below)
  • Bullying
There are probably more things for this list too.

Regarding video games - Most of us grew up playing cops and robbers/cowboys and Indians. It is in the male nature to want to be a hero and protector and take care of the bad guys. While I am not at all opposed to that, and even support it, I do have some concern in how easy it is to realistically role play in mass killings with no consequences. The problem, as I see it, is that some begin to think that this is how it might be when killing for real, and I don’t think that is generally true.

While I am not generally into conspiracies, there is something that bugs me a bit about this. I don’t think either of the two shootings I have been personally close to made the news for long, unlike many of these. Why? I’m not sure. The community certainly pulled together in both cases. There was a great turning to God in at least one of the two. The communities were also pro-gun and generally pretty conservative. Was it that these two situations did not fit the mold? Is there motive behind this to encourage gun control? What is the entity driving it? The news? The government? Some other groups? I’m not sure, and I realize this doesn’t make a case, but I find it very curious.
 
Just to clarify, I don’t intend to suggest that “broken families” are the one and only cause of school shootings. :rolleyes: I’m looking at the whole process of socialization of young males, but there is no “cure” that won’t include, at least, if not be driven by, rebuilding the role of a biblical father. I’m just wondering if someone else has already gathered and sifted the data on the families to save me the trouble. :p
 
Great article, rockfox!
 
I have no hard data to report on.

My intuition is that the concept if the modern high school needs to be scrapped. It is essentially a Lord of the Flies, Darwinian experiment gone horribly wrong. You have a bunch of hormone-driven, immature, spoiled personalities making up their own social systems and mores with minimal adult input. The adult order of consequences and serious traditional guidance is missing because the system is not designed for serious adult intervention based on traditional models. The "elders" in this grouping are other teens. In a traditional system, elders help to regulate immature and non productive behaviors. The high school system and culture disdains the input of adult elders. It's also a highly feminized system with traditional male roles and behaviors being increasingly outmoded. These boys have nothing to relate to or regulate them.

Add in the other dysfunctions of these individuals, and you get chaos.

We have to face the reality that not everyone is destined to academic greatness. It's not a sin to state that either. Many of the boys need industrial/mechanical arts education, where creativity in "making" things can fill the void left by "learning" things. But, manual arts emphases are getting cut in favor of college preparatory education. There's nothing there for those of a different mindset and makeup (often disengaged males).

I hate to reference the Euros, but secondary education is essentially a tracked system after about grade 9, I believe. Students are tracked into college bound, manual arts bound, etc.

The several thousand member student body is a time bomb. Scrap it.
 
Hear, hear!!
 
The thing to remember here is this is a 90's and later problem. So while the school system is a HUGE issue, its but one piece of a larger puzzle.

Another one is helicopter parenting / overprotective parenting. That really kicked in during the 1990's.
 
Anyone interested in the generational aspect of this and the coming conflict might want to check out Generations by Strauss and Howe or an intro/summary of their work with updates called Winter is Coming written by James Goulding.
 
A lot of what’s going on is basically consequences of affluence, which makes us (the cultural collective) lazy, stupid, self-indulgent, and fragile. Cycles and all that....
 
andrew said:
A lot of what’s going on is basically consequences of affluence, which makes us (the cultural collective) lazy, stupid, self-indulgent, and fragile. Cycles and all that....
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That adds to @rockfox 's observation that this is a 90s and after phenomenon. The children of the late baby boomers were sheltered and coddled beyond necessity.

The 70s/80s school kids were children of late depression era offspring. They were hidden from economic hardship, but many high schoolers of that era were still expected to have summer jobs, or even after school jobs to buy cars, etc. Tnere was still some social cohesion that held them in place, but their downfall was the epidemic of cocaine and other drugs. It killed more teens in that generation than the school shootings.

But, it's not all modern. Go back 150 years and the whole gunfighter/Wild West culture comes to mind. Veterans, or children of the veterans, of the Civil War moved west in wanderlust and adventure lust. Saloons, brothels and bar fights dotted the frontier with frequent violence and STDs. We forget that this era and geographical area was often lawless, and it was often very young men. It's been romanticized, but it was brutally violent. Missionaries, homesteaders and town planners civilized the areas.
 
While there were a few hotspots of scum and villainy in the Old West and it being a tougher place to live than now, I think Hollywood has done a bang up job of making it out to be more violent than it actually was. The mortality rate was high, yes, but it was from things like disease, starvation, and the elements. Not so much from gun play.
 
Asforme&myhouse said:
While there were a few hotspots of scum and villainy in the Old West and it being a tougher place to live than now, I think Hollywood has done a bang up job of making it out to be more violent than it actually was. The mortality rate was high, yes, but it was from things like disease, starvation, and the elements. Not so much from gun play.
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I'm not thinking Hollywood, but I get what you are saying. There has been a lot if sensationalism. I've read lots of history, and have little reference right now other than memory, but there was more than enough violence and debauchery to go around. It was mostly young, disaffected or morally challenged young men.
 
That was a fascinating article, Steve. Thank you for sharing.
 
In speaking with other families about homeschooling, the response is often..."but what about social skills?..."

In what way does a high school setting mirror real life social settings? Think about it. Where else in real life do you have that many people, all the same age, congregating around, while producing nothing? It possibly prepares you for college, where there's just as many people producing very little. But, the real economy/society doesn't work that way. Social stratification based on popularity only gets you so far. After a while, you've got to produce, or be left behind in the brutal reality of life.

I can only think of the military that houses thousands of young people in one place, at one time. The difference is that in the military, there is a strict code of conduct, definitive boundaries, and enforced consequences...order, unity, cohesion. Modern High school is quite the opposite.
 
steve said:
http://thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/in-the-absence-of-fathers-a-story-of-elephants-and-men/
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Bravo, Master Steve!

Where have all the responsible liberals gone?
Dr. Horn cited a quote from a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan written some forty years ago:

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th Century Eastern Seaboard to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken homes, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any rational expectations for the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.”
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People are attracted to be a part of something larger than themselves. They also like being famous.
The idea that kids with weak consciences are attracted to being a part of the School Riot Movement is truely chilling.
 
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