Well, since the subject of school shootings has arisen again, I would like to mention an aspect of it that is overlooked by just about everyone.
Of course it’s a tragedy, and it never should have happened given the situation, but it should lead one to wonder why it happened. Now, the Columbine incident is an exception to this according to what I know, in consideration of the other shootings that have recently graced headlines, it really should have come as little surprise, if any.
Long ago, when sheltering someone was meant in only the physical aspect, people far and wide respected the threat of violence, and as such were more well behaved in a way. If you were to offer grievous insult to me, I could ask you to step outside to settle the matter. Even further back in time, I would have accepted a champion of your choosing. The outcome (whether I won or lost) would be irrelivant next to the fact that I would have had the courage to challenge you for behaving in such a lowly manner. Even if you had won, you would come out of the fight worse off than before, and would most likely think twice before repeating your mistake.This is not the case in modern times. If you, day after day, make me into a laughing stock, with no purpose in mind but to cause me constant humiliation and emotional pain, then I am expected to endure and perhaps register a complaint with whatever passes for authorities. From experience, these so-called authorities are often beneath mention because of their pathetic ineffectiveness. If you throw gum into my hair, I technically may not even threaten you, much less strike you, and forget about reducing you to bloodmist as I would prefer. But ignore all that. You may continue bedevil me for all my days without fear of revenge/justice because you are protected from violence no matter what you do.Then consider that, with this last school shooting (sorry that I cannot remember the exact date, or even what state it was in), nearly every student interviewed about the shooter mentioned that he was the target of unending abuse from his peers. Of course it was not reason enough to murder them, or the innocents in the way, but it infuriates me that anyone can be as vapid to ask, “Why?”I am willing to assume that he was imbalanced to begin with, but I refuse to even think for a moment that anything remotely similar would have happened if he had been left to his own devices instead of being harrassed every day.The survivors should know better than to be assholes for no reason now, but at this point, it remains unlikely. If they had grown up knowing they would have been trounced for the rogues they were because of acting that way, it is highly probable that the whole ordeal never would have happened.How many more dead will it take to realize that there is something dreadfully wrong with the whole picture, not just a piece? And by the way, the last kid didn’t have any fucking trenchcoat.