Just a Thought

[perzephone]

I read an article earlier today (that I cannot find now) about school shootings and the culture of non-disclosure in which most kids live. When you're a kid or teenager, if you hear that something bad is going to happen, unless it's going to happen to one of your best friends, generally you keep your mouth shut. If you hear about something bad that's going to happen to a best friend they're the only one you tell. The article was focusing on changing that attitude to make safe environments for people to alert school officials if they hear of a murder plot, no matter how small or off-hand it sounds, free of retribution and scorn from peers. Schools are also implementing zero-tolerance policies regarding verbal and physical abuse, bullying, sexual orientation discrimination, etc.

When I was in school kids were violent - we hurled abuses upon one another verbally and physically, we layed in wait for someone to walk unsuspectingly into a bathroom or just turn a corner away from the eyes of authority figures. We would bluff and threaten and beat each other up, fuck up shit in lockers, trash cars, you name it. During high school there were drive-bys in the parking lot. It was just gangs fighting gangs - sorry if you got in the way, but it wasn't personal unless you were in one of the gangs. There were also occasional rapes. I don't think it ever occurred to anyone I went to grade school or jr high school with to bring a gun to class to gun everyone down.

The violence seems to have stepped up over the past 16 years or so since I dropped out - it all kind of started with Kip Kinkle back in 1997. (I originally typed 1991 because I was also looking at an article about Jeremy Wade Delle, who committed suicide in front of his class in 1991) The article I read said that most school shootings are done by kids who are bullied and depressed - which instantly makes me think of 'Goths' and emo-kids. I think between that prevailing attitude and school's pressuring kids into being well-behaved and politically correct, it's going to cause 'normal' kids to lash out even more at the weird kids. I think it's going to start a culture of "kill them before they kill us first". Instead of wailing on them at school where they can get into trouble for it, or starting fights in parking lots or at bus stops, the normal kids are going to be laying in wait for the quiet, depressed, awkward ones off school grounds - with guns.

Comments

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Kip Kinkel made it famous, but it was common before his teenage rampage. Kip Kinkel attacked in 1998, and his attack was preceded by three teenage shootings/attacks in that year alone. In 1997, the year before, there were five attacks.

Teenage school shootings really started in 1978, with three attacks. Kip Kinkel wasn't the start of something big, he was the symptom of something much bigger. He was just one of many that year who decided to rampage across his school. And it was about 20 years after the epidemic started.

School Shootings

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

I don't really count the most famous of the '78 shootings - the kid got pissed off at a principal who had paddled his ass the day before - he brought a gun to school to shoot his principal, not to wreak havoc on the general populace. (When I went to school in TN in '88, corporal punishment by school employees was still perfectly o.k. - people just don't learn from the past). I'm also not looking at the incidences at colleges (like the '66 clocktower shootings) or those where adults unleashed on school staff & students... or the military (Kent State ... '4 dead in Ohio', sing it Neil, sing it, or when Chechen militants invaded that school in Russia).

There was a peak of school violence between like, '95 - '02, then things went sort of quiet until last year or so. There was a fairly quiet gap between the two shootings in Canadian schools in '75, the shootings of '78 and the shootings at Polytech in 1989.

We've had a lot of shootings here in Vegas over the past year - not a lot of fatalities, but it seems like every other week we're hearing about kids trying to kill each other. My nieces are out of school, which is relieving, but when we drive down the street & I see some kid dressed in all black w/dyed hair & make-up, and they're walking all by themselves w/their heads down while other gaggles of kids pass them, giving them wide berth on the sidewalks, or when parents bring their emo/goth kids to the courthouse for whatever cracked-brain reason & people give them the hairy eyeball, it makes me think.

Re: School Shootings

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I don't really count the most famous of the '78 shootings - the kid got pissed off at a principal who had paddled his ass the day before - he brought a gun to school to shoot his principal, not to wreak havoc on the general populace.

Actually I think Roger Needham's shooting was worse, killing one student and wounding another (in 1978). And in 1974, Anthony Barbaro broke into his highschool, set several figres, shot at people responding to the fire alarm; killing three and wounding 9 (which is actually a higher death count than Kipland himself, who - while wounding plenty, only ended up killing two). He then killed himself.

Serious school shootings were happening in the 70s, and they certainly weren't happening in a comparable nature elsewhere in the world like the UK or Australia. The US has had its own growing epidemic, for a long long time.

I'm including teenagers, look at Brenda Spencer in 1979; 16 and kiling two adults, 8 children and one policeman. The song 'I don't like mondays' is written after her - her primary reason for why she decided to kill in the first place.

Granted shootings did go quite quiet in the 80s, but I think the groundwork was laid in the 70s.

The US 'right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for; while the gun association can go nuts about statistics talking about how citizens owning guns reduces shootings - the fact remains that no other country that actually restricts firearm access in a logical way experiences problems relating to shootings like the US does.

Also, I think that when teenagers are further isolated by the general populace (i.e. being treated like criminals before they are criminals, or being avoided simply for the way they look) it creates a larger problem; since most teen shooters are incredibly isolated and not popular.

Reverse ageism has a lot to answer for also, there is a growing epidemic of older people who persecute, condemn, or simply try not to understand teenagers who look different or act different. I experienced it myself as a teenager, and found it reprehensible.

That is also a growing epidemic, and when adults start treating teenagers like they're guilty before they've been proven innocent, with the added benefits of firearms and bullying, you have a great breeding ground for isolation, deviance and violence.

Re: School Shootings

[perzephone.livejournal.com]

The US 'right to bear arms' has a lot to answer for

Ok, here's where I whip out my red neck. Guns don't kill people, people kill people. People were killing each other with rocks and sticks long before guns (or gunpowder) were invented. When I was 5 or so, we lived in a barrio, and the Hispanic gangs went after each other vigorously with tire irons and chains and knives. People still kill one another in areas where guns are not as accessible to the general public. Humans are violent savage animals, especially when they're kids and don't have the same kind of social inhibitions that most adults do (I say most because my coworkers seem to enjoy verbally abusing one another).

This really kind of got off the point - I'm not sitting here trying to write up some kind of term paper about the negative sociological impact of violence in schools. All I was saying is that the media focus on who perpetrates mass murder inthe classroom is going to end up targeting the kids who are isolated loners, goths, emos, etc. for pre-emptive strikes.

I don't think many parents send their kids off to school telling them, "Ok, if you see a fat kid, a kid who wears glasses, a kid with braces, a kid who dyes their hair and wears dark clothing you torture them mercilessly, every time you see them, every chance you get". I know for a fact that parents can be racist, sexist and practice open gender-discrimination in front of their kids, be it consciously trying to instill those attitudes or subconsciously, but kids can pick up these kind of prejudices and behaviors all on their own. Then you mix in the hormones and angst of jr high/high school along w/the instinctual desire to preserve genetic integrity and soon you've got some poor kid killing themselves and others because they just can't take the abuse any more. Guns are just a handy tool, but some of these kids knew how to make pipe bombs and molotov cocktails. (My dad showed me how to make napalm and told me how to kill masses with horsehair (or tiger whiskers) - I guess he assumed it would never go past 'science class experiment' but it's stuff I've hung onto for many, many years).