What's with all the schoolchildren?!?

[Its a Plant]

Damn, I swear, everytime I log onto Yahoo mail there's ANOTHER blip about some school shooting. There have been 3 in the last 2 weeks for Christ's sake! What's going on here? I look today and now some Amish school in Pennsyvlania was shot up and 6 kids were killed.

And I believe it was the 26th of September that we had another one in Colorado killing one girl and then the killer shot himself. Around the same time there was that old man who tried to pose as a high school student who walked in with a shotgun and held a handful of girls hostage before killing himself.

Seriously, this is starting to get crazy! Are kids just completely off their rockers now-a-days? All I can say is that I'm sure as hell glad I made it out of elementary school alive.

Any comments? Anything? ~

[Its a Plant]

Yeah I see that an old truck driver is responsible for the latest, but I also forgot about the kid from Wisconson who walked into school and killed his principle last week. Three in ONE week! Wow. ~

[benagain]

Yes. The children have gone mad. Along with some of the adults as well. I wish I knew why they're doing it. I had shitty days at school, but wouldn't dream of shooting up the place. At this rate, my kid (if i ever have one) I'll have to get my kid a .38 and a bulletproof vest in kindergarten.

[Acouwaila]

Some guy killed his two sons in the parking lot here at my college (right behind my dorm building)

[slipknotpsycho]

well maybe this was already a major underlying problem, you know wanting to masacre class mates and people in school (as for the old men it could very well be they were tortured through school?) and now guns are just easier to get ahold of for them to carry it out with.

[slipknotpsycho]

Yes. The children have gone mad. Along with some of the adults as well. I wish I knew why they're doing it. I had shitty days at school, but wouldn't dream of shooting up the place. At this rate, my kid (if i ever have one) I'll have to get my kid a .38 and a bulletproof vest in kindergarten.

at this rate, your kid will be able to get it for himself on allowance money :thumbsup:

[MegaOctane12]

Because the kids can't express themselves without fucking lawsuits and politically correctness. It gets to the point where you get pushed around so much you just explode and kill somebody.

[JR77]

Because the kids can't express themselves without fucking lawsuits and politically correctness. It gets to the point where you get pushed around so much you just explode and kill somebody.


A lot of times though it seems that the kid shooters were just dealing with stuff that many of us I am sure have had to deal with and we never would've blown people away....just cuz we could! What the hell is going on these days???

[Oneironaut]

It's called alienation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation). In our culture, the fetishization of commodities and material wealth has given our society a very impersonal, dog-eat-dog attitude. This, combined with the traditional expectation that men are not to share their emotions, is a recipe for an atomized society, with people growing ever more distant from each other as they seek to get rid of their negative emotions through the media and the accumulation of material goods. Of course, these things don't bring true emotional fulfillment, so it's no wonder we've got angsty teens monstruous enough to slaughter classmates without feeling bad about it. They don't feel that they have purpose in their lives, or that they belong to a community that cares about them, or that the experience called life is so magnificent that to deprive others of it is the worst thing anybody can do.

It clearly cannot be drugs, or violent video games, or metal music, that drives teenage boys to such heinous acts, although many like to blame it on such things. Really, the cause must be a deep-seated psychological feeling of emptiness and alienation, and we have to ask what we can change about our society to prevent that kind of thing from happening.

[Nochowderforyou]

When I was in HS I got picked on daily and I should have been one of those kids on the news shotting up his classmates. It seems if you do not fit in to any kind of group at HS, you are an outcast. No one talks to you and the only time they do, is to put you down. The only time they reach out a hand, is to slug you in the face.

If you ask me, it's all about lack of respect for another human being. I'm not saying all HS kids are like this, but most of them are who fit into a clique. If you don't belong, it's called Alienation, which Oneironaut already covered. Being in total isolation gives a person time to think, a lot, and that can be dangerous. Not only that, you are surrounded everyday by people who dislike you, with the combo of isolation...that leads to bad things.

I say next time you see that guy/girl sitting alone on the bus or at lunch, go and talk to them. Make them feel like they're part of something and treat them like your own because a lonley mind who is picked on daily, leads to awful things. I'm just glad I flipped off the principal and flipped him the bird in my days.

[Professor Dan K.]

how about grow some balls (confidence if you lack them) and go do stuff with people, start hanging out with people with your same interests. if one person tells me theyre so misunderstood that nobody would want to be friends with them... that is straight bullshit. i mean im not the most outgoing guy out there, but having friends is a good thing.

also, should bullying be the problem, i mean there are things you can do about that. if its to the point where they wont stop nomatter what you do, start lifting weights, take up boxing or something. hell if someone picked on me and it started to get physical, im not gonna sit there and take fists to my face even if the guy is huge im not just gonna let someone hurt me.

messed up world we live in where people bully each other and cause emotional harm towards others, but like stated above, what can we do to better out world?

[Nochowderforyou]

The only reason I got picked on is because for one, I didn't speak English well, and 2, I wanted to make friends, 3, because I come from the most non-violent place on earth.

When I first came here I couldn't believe how poorly kids treeated one another. I couldn't believe what a person had to do to impress kids to belong.

In Holland, in school, you are ONE, not a group of this, and that, and if you aren't one of those cliques, you are nothing and get a bullseye branded on you.

Kids just need to stop being so judgemental towards how a person looks. Kids never took the time to say 2 words to me to get to know me. Maybe if kids these days would learn something called EMPATHY, RESPECT, and ACCEPTANCE FOR WHO IS DIFFERENT, than maybe these things wouldn't happen. Kids these days are too hung up on appearance, it's like, coorperate Hollywood has taken over Canada, US, and the Uk.

[halosin8r]

also, should bullying be the problem, i mean there are things you can do about that. if its to the point where they wont stop nomatter what you do, start lifting weights, take up boxing or something. hell if someone picked on me and it started to get physical, im not gonna sit there and take fists to my face even if the guy is huge im not just gonna let someone hurt me.
Thats not the case. Mentality set of one individual to another will be different. Your way might work for you, another student may just go to authorities, as another would bring a knife or a gun.

I personally feel that this string of events is a message of some sort. Can't quite ponder what it is.

[crudemood]

Damn, I swear, everytime I log onto Yahoo mail there's ANOTHER blip about some school shooting. There have been 3 in the last 2 weeks for Christ's sake! What's going on here? I look today and now some Amish school in Pennsyvlania was shot up and 6 kids were killed.

And I believe it was the 26th of September that we had another one in Colorado killing one girl and then the killer shot himself. Around the same time there was that old man who tried to pose as a high school student who walked in with a shotgun and held a handful of girls hostage before killing himself.

Seriously, this is starting to get crazy! Are kids just completely off their rockers now-a-days? All I can say is that I'm sure as hell glad I made it out of elementary school alive.

Any comments? Anything? ~

Yeah there was a shooting up here in canada, more specifically in montreal.
the dawsons college shooting. some dude walks into the school with an 1k47 and starts firing at everyone. that was messed up, it was in the news for 3 days.

as the days pass people are getting more evil. i dont get it. smoke and chill out people.. sheesh.

[T®auma]

I was just talking about this the other day. I am happy i am out of school because i wouldnt want to roll up one day after a wake and bake and get shot. That wouldnt be very cool.

[Oneironaut]

Well actually, schools are still very safe places to be. Certainly safer than pretty much anywhere else, when you actually look at the rates of violence in various locations. You're far more likely to get shot on the street or at home than at school; it's just that school shootings are far more dramatic and the media blows them way out of proportion to the point where we think schools are actually dangerous places to be.