Quick thoughts on school shootings on my website.

[clanhanson]

ALL of the federal, state and local gun laws on the BOOKS and proposed NEW gun laws will NOT PREVENT a MURDERER (ANY AGE!) who wants to do the dirty deed.

Gun, knife, SUV, big truck, rope, bare hands, bathtub, bucket, etc.

The BRAT - MURDERER was NOT even SEARCHED THE DAY BEFORE or the DAY OF THE MURDERS while in the FREAKING SCHOOL OFFICE!

HIS body was not searched.

HIS locker was not searched.

HIS back pack that he TOOK INTO THE BATHROOM and CAME OUT of with the gun while BLASTING AWAY - MURDERING - INJURING PEOPLE was NOT EVEN SEARCHED.

The TIME LINE of all of this MESS is interesting to READ again and I listened to the PROSECUTOR and to other videos with sound from the authorities all over again.

The MOM made the text about not doing it, bla and bla.

The DAD 'rushes' home and finds the gun missing.

It appears to me that the FREAK should have been entirely searched and REMOVED from school whether the parents (!?!) wanted him to GO HOME OR NOT!

I personally BELIEVE that the parents KNEW WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO even without the school office visits.

They KNEW it no matter what THEY or their LYING dip s!!! DEFENSE lawyers say!

Plus with ALL of the other LE reports and information that has come out and is still coming out - they were FLEEING and tons more.

Etc.

I do NOT believe in the over 20,000 'gun laws'. Hate me for saying this all over again. NO sweat! PUT me on ignore. Thank you.

I do FOLLOW and OBEY the gun laws with that said. ADDED MORE here.

I DO BELIEVE that a parent or an adult who has children or children around who are sane or whacked out should CONTROL HIS OWN GUNS IN HIS OWN HOME. Do it on their own and NOT have another federal or state or local mandated law.

SO much could have been done to prevent all of this but as usual - it is just another BS PASS THE BUCK STORY.

One big cluster you know what!

The MURDERER NEEDS TO GET the death penalty after a fair, quick and sane trial.

No matter if he pleas sane or insane. He has claimed NOT guilty from what I read just as the dip S parents pled. SEE the long MI shooter thread. Thank you.

The KID PREPLANNED all of these murders and in some TWISTED THINKING (NO offense.) - I ALMOST BELIEVE that the parents WANTED HIM TO DO THIS.

I do believe that MK Ultra under another NEW name for programming is still out there. Laugh - I do not give a rat's @@@!

The use of Legal Rx drugs and illegal drugs being PUMPED OUT to every person who wants them or is ordered to TAKE THEM do not help matters in today's world.

LEGAL psycho babble drugs and illegal drugs are extremely powerful and have HUGE side effects.

Especially when it comes to KIDS and teens.

Old Lady Cate

Added more.

In cases where the evidence is 100% damning, like this one, I'll help you pull the lever!

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Andy, I do agree that ultimately the responsibility for mass shootings are on the shooter. No disagreement there and I'm not trying to put blame on anyone else, but rather trying to search for ways at a cultural level that we might reduce the incidence of such shootings. I also recognize (and hope you as an educator do too) that young, school-age brains are, scientifically objectively, not fully developed and don't have the capacity to fully understand/recognize the consequences of their actions.

I guess I'm saying that the sort of cultural influences that I described could lead a young boy/man to feel extremely limited in the choices available to them. If society has so repeatedly told a young boy, in one way or another, that if you're having feelings anger is the only one you are allowed to express or that if you're having problems violence is the answer, it's easy to understand how a boy like this would feel like his choices were limited.

I understand your point here of how cultural influences can lead someone to feeling limited in choices...

With that said....

Every school day I teach responsibility for one's choices....as well as :
Accepting the consequences for one's actions / choices....
And the notion that :
If you want the same results..do as you always have done...if you want different results...do something different.

And with that said...
I often have to re-teach the same folks over again....due partly to the fact that culturally I don't have the same impact or influence as someone or something else.

So we ain't that far apart....

I just focus more on the individual within the culture , rather the culture itself.
Andy

 

[Mikej]

Ok, then if the term is what's offensive, take the specific phrase out....

Why, would you say, is it the case that virtually all mass shooters are male? Does anything that I wrote about those cultural values that associate masculinity with emotional repression and violence as a principle means of problem-solving resonate with you or your observations of our society?

I'm certainly not trying to "create hate against men and guilt within the male community," I'm trying to encourage some honest cultural reflection about how we raise our boys and young men.

I'm not smart enough to word my thoughts unfortunately. But I know this has a lot todo with it.....

 

[joshkk]

I just focus more on the individual within the culture , rather the culture itself.

Would you say that mass shootings is an issue within our culture? If so, it seems appropriate to search for cultural-level answers...

Leaving out the phrase "toxic masculinity," do you have any thoughts in response to my earlier question about why virtually all mass shooters are male? How can you explain that although they are less than half of the population, less bullied in school than girls or gender-queer kids, and privileged in many ways in society, men perpetrate virtually all of such mass violence? What do you think it is that makes all these men think that this is a good choice for them? I'm not sure it's quite as simple as MikeJ's video clip above...

 

[Longwalkhome]

Um...no.

The "culture in the schools" is just one small portion of the overall culture of our society. The problem is the entirety of our current culture, not just what goes on in schools. There is plenty of blame to go around the totality of society...not just the schools.

And this is why the problem is so hard to fix...because you have to fix the entire culture/society that is rotting at its core. That will take generations to do. We didn't get here overnight and where not going to solve this overnight. And that won't happen until people start having an honest conversation about the entirety of the problem. But it's far easier to just blame guns or any other convenient scapegoat.

Ya it's really hard to accept that the schools are the problem. Nobody does an honest comparison of what's different because when the fact is accepted that the public schools are the problem, fixing the problem won't happen.

Compare just with the private schools and that is obviously proof public schools are the problem. Everything from forcing kids to take drugs that turn them psychotic to letting bullies get the hate going.

It can't be fixed and won't be for many reasons so if a person wants the best safety and learning then get their kids out of public schools and into private schools

 

[Mikej]

Would you say that mass shootings is an issue within our culture? If so, it seems appropriate to search for cultural-level answers...

Leaving out the phrase "toxic masculinity," do you have any thoughts in response to my earlier question about why virtually all mass shooters are male? How can you explain that although they are less than half of the population, less bullied in school than girls or gender-queer kids, and privileged in many ways in society, men perpetrate virtually all of such mass violence? What do you think it is that makes all these men think that this is a good choice for them? I'm not sure it's quite as simple as MikeJ's video clip above...

You have to accept there's going to be differences in a being having testosterone and a being having estrogen flowing in them. It IS that simple. You write like you believe men and women can be the same? Equal? In my opinion woman are capable of being just as abusive as men. Women do it mentally where men abuse physically. Both are very painful to the abused. There's "Toxic Femininity" too. Ask some of the divorced men around here.

 

[joshkk]

You have to accept there's going to be differences in a being having testosterone and a being having estrogen flowing in them. It IS that simple.

You know that you have estrogen flowing in you too, right? No, I don't believe it's as simple as pure bodily chemistry... While I am willing to acknowledge that higher level of testosterone in males might lead towards higher levels of aggressive behavior, I refuse to believe that the issue why boys/men perpetuate mass shootings is purely a question of "nature" over "nurture." AND, if the outcome of such bodily pre-determinants as you suggest is mass violence, then I think it's imperative that we, individually and culturally, search for ways to mitigate that including cultural shifts away from encouraging boys toward repression of all emotions except for anger and of violence as the best choice for how to engage with hard situations.

I'm not sure what context you're talking about, but I absolutely DO believe that men and women can be equal.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Would you say that mass shootings is an issue within our culture? If so, it seems appropriate to search for cultural-level answers...

Leaving out the phrase "toxic masculinity," do you have any thoughts in response to my earlier question about why virtually all mass shooters are male? How can you explain that although they are less than half of the population, less bullied in school than girls or gender-queer kids, and privileged in many ways in society, men perpetrate virtually all of such mass violence? What do you think it is that makes all these men think that this is a good choice for them? I'm not sure it's quite as simple as MikeJ's video clip above...

First question "...issue within our culture? "
No...mostly.
No 'cause again....what you do , is your choice.
Culture may have an influence...which can help lead you and your choices , but....
Again at the end of the day , you decide what to say , do and think...so my answer is : No , mostly.

As for the rest....
I can't .
I can't because , I didn't do any of those things....they did.

Why they did the things they did , may have some commonalities or a collective influence...
I ain't saying they didn't...

I just can't answer the "Why" , because only they know the cause , even if they can't or won't articulate it.

Again....
I am coming at this from a different perspective than you.
I am coming from the perspective that no matter what outside influences there are....it is a individual's choice to do something.
Andy

 

[Mikej]

Men should be taught by their fathers how to be good humans. They've got the extra strength thing going on. Maybe the problem is lack of a male parent while growing up? So it's actually NOT a lack of nurture, it's lack of another male as a mentor?

 

[titsonritz]

It's a made up term of pseudoscience. A cleverly disguised anti-male stratagem designed to create both hate against men, and guilt within the male community.

Yep, not even going to entertain that libtard BS. Line up all the school shooters and look at them, there isn't an once of masculinity between them, toxic or otherwise.

 

[bradsteen]

I'm going to use a phrase that many on this forum may knee-jerk reflexively dismiss because of their associations of it with other "leftist" cultural ideas, but I hope you'll hear me out because I think it IS the root cause of these school shootings: "Toxic Masculinity"

It is clear to me, backed by easily found statistics, that the common denominator in virtually all mass shootings (in schools and otherwise) is that they are perpetrated by men and boys. CA Governor Gavin Newsom, speaking after the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Fest, said "These shootings overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, are males, boys, 'men' — I put in loose quotes... I do think that is missing in the national conversation. I think that goes deep to the issue of how we raise our boys to be men, goes deeply into values that we tend to hold dear: power, dominance and aggression over empathy, care and collaboration." I am right there with him in that belief.

Kids of all types are subject to intense social pressures described by many commentators above: troubled home lives, bullying including through new avenues of social media, pressure to succeed, despondency about the state of the world, etc. "Girls are bullied more often than boys—30 percent of girls experience it, compared with 22 percent of boys. Students who identify their gender in any other way have it worst of all, and are twice as likely as their peers to be bullied," (https://www.glamour.com/story/girls-get-bullied-more-than-boys-survey) and "in general, girls are more often bullied than boys, and girls are also more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide compared with boys" (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190507110457.htm_) but yet they aren't the ones going and shooting up the schools. It's the boys. Why's that?

I think it's because of widespread social pressures placed upon men to be violent, competitive, independent, and unfeeling as a form of idealized masculinity, the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence. Men and boys will often resort to violence to resolve conflict because anger is the only emotion that they have been socialized to express. In its simplest of terms, toxic masculinity is a system that reinforces male superiority and often uses intimidation, violence, and abuse to maintain that sense of power.

I'm firmly in agreement with this quote from earlier in the thread and believe that this sort of widespread toxic masculinity is one example of how this culture/society is rotting at its core. It IS going to take generations. It is going to take concerted work, especially on the part of men, to unlearn and unspin all sorts of cultural ideas about what it means to be a man and the close association of masculinity with physical violence and domination as the way to solve our problems.

I'm happily a man, comfortable in my masculinity, and grateful to have been raised by a father, grandfathers, and other male family friends who did not embody or encourage violence as part of my upbringing. I am NOT dismissing or devaluing a wide range of other, healthier, traditionally masculine cultural traits (such as leadership, strength, courage, providing for one's family, success at work, etc). I believe that there's a tremendous amount of personal and cultural work to do to allow boys/men to express a wide range of emotions, encourage boys/men to demonstrate nurturing, compassionate, and caring behavior toward themselves and others, create openings for other boys/men to share their experiences and feelings, and encourage boys/men to ask for help when they are struggling.

I hope that the men reading this will be able to recognize some truth in what I say without feeling attacked. I hope that you'll take the time for some introspection about your own upbringing and values and explore whether there are ways in which you'd like to shift your own masculinity further away from one that emphasizes emotional repression, violence, and domination as idealized manhood, as well as how you raise your sons and interact with other male youth in your life. I think that, ultimately, this is the cultural answer for how to reduce mass shootings in schools and elsewhere.

Thank you for taking the time to compose an articulate, clearly-worded, and respecful post. I agree that overly aggressive behaviors, extreme narcissicm, and lack of empathy / sociopathy -traits that when combined form the basis of what is now being called "toxic masculinity" - are certainly a problem. However, I must respectfully disagree with your premise that it is a major factor in the school shooting phenomenon.

School shooters are typically loners and outcasts, not "alphas"; they are socially awkward and struggle to find acceptance within the social heirarchies of their peers, which makes them a frequent target for bullies. They suffer from depression, ADHD, or other disorders that join the usual cyclone of hormones a teenager or young adult experiences as they mature. They often have a difficult home life, parents who fight a lot, physical or psychological abuse, etc.

These experiences generate a lot of strong emotions - anger, pain, embarrassment, shame, rejection, and isolation - but they don't know how to deal with those emotions. Instead of handling them in a healthy way, they internalize them. This builds up over time, and they don't have a release valve for all those built-up emotions, so they eventually reach a breaking point.

One part of your post I completely agree with, and would argue is probably the biggest contributing factor to most violence (school shooting or otherwise), is:

Men and boys will often resort to violence to resolve conflict because anger is the only emotion that they have been socialized to express.

Children and young adults need to learn how to manage strong emotions in a healthy way. This is not just about anger or frustration - pain, rejection, shame, and other emotions need to be managed as well, because they are typically the seeds that grow into anger when left unchecked.

They also need to learn how to deal with disagreement and conflict, both in the moment as well as in the aftermath. The latter is almost more important in my opinion because they will re-live the event over and over in their minds, compounding or extending the pain they experienced in the moment. This is why many school shooters have specific targets - people who bullied or emotionally harmed them.

We see the symptoms of our society's inability to handle conflict and disagreement all around us. We see people resort to personal attacks because it feels good in the moment, not considering the effect their words will have on the other party. We see them misinterpret the meaning or intent of other people's words, take them out of context, and jump to conclusions. We see name-calling, labeling, and dehumanizing on a broad scale, and a chasm growing between people because they have different opinions.

My dad taught me that you can't control other people's behavior, but you can control how you respond to it. We need to learn how to step back from an issue, set emotions aside, actively listen, avoid assumptions, recognize and acknowledge other people's perspectives, and articulate our responses both clearly and with respect to the other person. These are learned skills; we need to practice those skills and use them daily. If we do this and lead by example, our children will learn them as well.

 

[joshkk]

@bradsteen

I am right there with you on everything you posted. The principle point of my initial comment on the matter was fundamentally in line with everything you wrote about healthy emotional regulation, practicing and leading by example, etc. It sounds like many of us here were blessed to have fathers and other male role models who DID teach us these things (you, Andy, and I have all cited such positive influences in our lives), but it's also clear that plenty of young men don't have that and/or worse, have male role models or other cultural influences that teach them the opposite: To repress their feelings, to handle issues with violence, that having or expressing emotions is an emasculating quality, etc. Were you ever called a sissy by an adult male role model for crying? Were you ever told that the only way to deal with a bully was to fight him? Were you ever told that to participate in arts instead of sports was a threat to your masculinity? A culture among school officials that lets bullying slide by saying "boys with be boys" and allows children to be hurt in these ways is part of that problem specific to school culture. Some of the college-aged mass shooters have written in their manifestos/rage notes that it was because of rejection by women that they were spurred to such violent anger. Until we address such misogyny that makes young men feel entitled to have whatever they want from any woman that they would kill her (or others) because she said no, we're going to have issues like this.

My fundamental point was that we, as individuals and as a society, need to do a better job raising young men to deal with emotional or other hardships in healthy ways and not resort to murderous violence because they've been taught or believe that that's the best or only answer. I'm advocating for a healthier culture of masculinity.... "Toxic masculinity" doesn't just manifest as school shootings, it also shows up as men's perpetration of sexual and domestic violence, reluctance to seek necessary medical care, dangerous levels of alcohol consumption and all the damage that comes with that, suicide, etc. all of which negatively impact men disproportionately but society's health and well-being as a whole.


I'm going to close by quoting from a letter that my best friend's dad wrote me for my 13th birthday, something I still have and treasure decades later. He was a Vietnam Marine Corps vet, former coal miner, mechanic for public transit trains, a very "manly man" by any measure. I just wish that this sort of teaching was more normative in our culture.

"For young men like you and (best friend), the message will be to be in control at all times. Men are in control because men are strong. Men must always be strong. They can never be weak, Women are weak, they are supposed to be, they can afford to be. Men run the world because they are strong, they are in control because they are strong. Men must never show weakness either physically or emotionally. Women can do that. That is what you will be told. That is, for the most part, what will be expected of you. But Josh that is not the way it has to be. It is not the way it should be. You, as an individual, can choose how strong you wish to be; how much in control you wish to be. It is, for the most part, up to you to decide these things. There will be times in your life where it will be necessary to be strong and to take control. You may or may not like it. But you will realize that for you to succeed, achieve some chosen goal or to just survive you must exert yourself and be strong. And as you can choose to be strong, you also can choose to not be strong; to be vulnerable, passive, or yielding. These too, can be good things. The whole point, Josh, is that you can choose. You are the person who decides when to be strong and in command; you are the one who chooses when to relinquish control and be a follower. No matter what out-dated social or cultural traditions may demand, you decide; if you want."

 

[Soli]

I think it's because of widespread social pressures placed upon men to be violent, competitive, independent, and unfeeling as a form of idealized masculinity, the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence. Men and boys will often resort to violence to resolve conflict because anger is the only emotion that they have been socialized to express.

Was going to respond only to the above with an assertion: This has never been the norm. As if "violent, competitive, independent, and unfeeling" are all of a piece, synonymous. Much less each fosters wanton violence. Or the frankly ridiculous notion that any non-psycho parent or society at large fosters anger as the only emotion men are supposed to express.

But then you posted this:

"For young men like you and (best friend), the message will be to be in control at all times. Men are in control because men are strong. Men must always be strong. They can never be weak, Women are weak, they are supposed to be, they can afford to be. Men run the world because they are strong, they are in control because they are strong. Men must never show weakness either physically or emotionally. Women can do that. That is what you will be told. That is, for the most part, what will be expected of you. But Josh that is not the way it has to be. It is not the way it should be. You, as an individual, can choose how strong you wish to be; how much in control you wish to be. It is, for the most part, up to you to decide these things. There will be times in your life where it will be necessary to be strong and to take control. You may or may not like it. But you will realize that for you to succeed, achieve some chosen goal or to just survive you must exert yourself and be strong. And as you can choose to be strong, you also can choose to not be strong; to be vulnerable, passive, or yielding. These too, can be good things. The whole point, Josh, is that you can choose. You are the person who decides when to be strong and in command; you are the one who chooses when to relinquish control and be a follower. No matter what out-dated social or cultural traditions may demand, you decide; if you want."

Exceptionally articulate and well written, but I'll assert not exceptional at all in how masculinity has been viewed and inculcated in America for generations. If ever.

Cruel, cheating, selfish, unfeeling men have never been held up as a good. If that was all "Toxic Masculinity" described then it wouldn't even be a thing, because those traits have always been seen as bad.

"Toxic Masculinity" is a toxic construction, because it's not honest. It's a political phrase whose definition changes as the situation demands, used to explain anything from a killer to someone who thinks a man should be able to speak on something, and all in between. It is a catch all, not to enlighten but simply to divide, signal who's on the 'good' and 'bad' sides, and legitimize whatever idea the speaker wants to put forward to "cure" a bad situation.

Doubt it? Then I ask: what behavior that someone doesn't like hasn't been described lately by someone as based in "Toxic Masculinity?"

IMO "Toxic Masculinity" as cause is synonymous with "Satan" as cause. It explains everything. But only to believers. And makes working with non-believers impossible because, well, they're at least ignorant, likely stupid, and probably bad people. They don't believe!

 

[Andy54Hawken]

IMO "Toxic Masculinity" as cause is synonymous with "Satan" as cause.

Just where my mind went....
Andy

 

[joshkk]

Exceptionally articulate and well written, but I'll assert not exceptional at all in how masculinity has been viewed and inculcated in America for generations. If ever.

If that was how masculinity has been viewed and inculcated in America for generations, then why do you think he wrote that to me? Why do you think that this manly man, who'd been in combat, been in the mines, been in the workforce, been around the block, wrote to an adolescent boy: "The message will be to be in control at all times... Men are in control because men are strong. Men must always be strong. They can never be weak... Men run the world because they are strong, they are in control because they are strong. Men must never show weakness either physically or emotionally. Women can do that. That is what you will be told. That is, for the most part, what will be expected of you."

 

[Soli]

He's writing to a 13 year old. Inculcating. He was not out of the norm.

He was inoculating you against messages you would receive, in language (must, always, never, etc) that a 13 would understand. It could be a result of how he was raised; the filter through which everything he saw and did was experienced.

Anyway, I never said those messages aren't out there. The simplification of the world is one of the tactics used in politics. In this case the existence of attitudes, beliefs, etc being built into "The System" that is then revealed to be the source of all that is bad.

Again I'll ask you: what bad behavior by men isn't "Toxic Masculinity" now a days?

 

[joshkk]

It's not a term I use lightly or broadly as a catch-all (although I acknowledge the truth in what you point to that there are those who do).

Here are some specific traits, commonly associated with masculinity, that I would identify as toxic and that I would argue factor into plenty of the mass shootings: Aggression, sexual aggression or control, showing no emotion or suppressing emotions, hyper-competitiveness, needing to dominate or control others, a tendency towards or glorification of violence, isolation, low empathy, entitlement, homophobia, chauvinism and sexism.

 

[joshkk]

Cruel, cheating, selfish, unfeeling men have never been held up as good

That's obviously untrue. There are countless examples of cruel, cheating, selfish, unfeeling men who have been exalted to the highest levels of power in every aspect of society across the world, including business, religion, politics, celebrity, etc.

 

[Soli]

I don't see most of those as "masculine," they're the traits of "bubblegums."

They're definitely in the world. And have long been condemned by civilized people. Why the confluence with masculinity (from wiki hahaha what a source: Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness.) used to confuse me.

Current politics have cleared up some of that confusion.

 

[Jay Walk]

Idealism is a pipe dream.

What got New York under control?

Crime and punishment.

Why has it gotten back out of control?

Not enough punishment.


Nothing new under the sun folks.


This deal is all planned or these people are retarded.