Why do school shootings happen?
Malcolm_X
Posts: 93
These things, as tragic as they are, they fascinate me......like WHY??? Why would someone do this? I can see like ok, a kid has problems with school, gets picked on bad home life etc. I mean when I was in middle school kids were vicious to me, called me fag, retard, gay etc. All which was false, and trust me, some of these kids I wanted to kill, but its like I knew this shit wouldn't last forever, its like what would you rather have 9 months outta the year of being picked on, or life in prison....Its like don't you know if you do this, your gonna be fucked for life....even if you get outta jail, your still fucked.
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the formulae can be changed to add in "kids whose mommy and daddy dont love them so much now"
lol Damn I remember those days when we'd do anything to get our hands on a porno movie
And then when we turned 18 the idea of buying porn was just boring. lol
I can provide you with some resources.
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/jpi/schoolhouse.pdf
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/tvoutils/globalfiles/VideoPop.cfm?spot_id=225&sitefolder=theagenda
The first thing to do though, is project your view into the view of the criminal. It's a difficult task, but to understand their motives, you must see the world as they do. You might say, that's impossible! Well it is, but even a partial view will help to understand their motivation. In order to do this you need a complete history of the subjects life leading up to the crime. You need to understand the cultural and social influences on the subject and how they perceive themselves in the social domain. A study of psychology, sociology, criminology, chaos theory and philosophy might help to truly capture the nature of the subject.
There is no A + B = Crime answer. But, criminologists have long identified things that contribute, such as differences in Social Economic Strata, childhood experiences, etc.. and things that are effective or ineffective in curbing crime, such as the Broken Windows theory.
I sometimes watch it just to remind me of my contributions to these massacres.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y9plRkjjbAA
because school shootings do not happen in finland...
violence is acceptable in today's society...for various reasons. instead of dealing with problems, now, people are ENDING the problem...because violence is acceptable...
from my window to yours
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Let's examine one case, Seung-Hui Cho, the V-Tech killer.
Childhood and adolescence
Cho's family lived in a basement apartment in South Korea. Cho's father was self-employed as a bookstore owner, but never made much money from the venture. Seeking economic opportunity, Cho's father emmigrated to the United States in September 1992 with his wife and two children. Cho was 8 years old at the time the family immigrated to the United States.
The family first lived in Detroit, and they later moved to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area after learning that the Washington, D.C. area had one of the largest Korean populations in the country. When Cho's family arrived in the Washington, D.C. area, they decided to move to Centreville, an unincorporated community located in western Fairfax County, Virginia about 25 miles (40 km) west of Washington, D.C.[9] After the family moved to Centreville, Cho and his family became permanent residents of the United States as South Korean nationals.[10][11] His parents became members of a local Christian church, and Cho himself was raised as a member of the religion.[12]
[edit] Family concerns about Cho's behavior during childhood
Cho's family, particularly family members who remained in South Korea, had concerns about Cho's behavior during his early childhood. Cho's relatives thought that he was mute or possibly mentally ill. According to Cho's uncle, Cho "didn’t say much and did not mix with other children."[13] Cho's maternal great-aunt, Kim Yang-soon, described Cho as "cold" and a cause of family concern from as young as 8 years old. According to Kim, who met him twice,[14] Cho was extremely shy and "just would not talk at all." He was otherwise considered "well-behaved," readily obeying verbal commands and cues.[15] The great-aunt said she knew something was wrong after the family's departure for the United States because she heard frequent updates about Cho's older sister, but little news about Cho.[16] During an ABC News Nightline interview on August 30, 2007, Cho's grandfather reported his concerns about Cho's behavior during childhood. According to Cho's grandfather, Cho never looked up to him to make eye contact, never called him grandfather and never made physical contact to hug him.[17]
[edit] Behavior in elementary school
Cho studied at Poplar Tree Elementary School in Chantilly, an unincorporated community in Fairfax County. According to Kim Gyeong-won, who first met Cho in the fifth grade and took classes with him,[18] Cho finished the three-year program at Poplar Tree Elementary School in one and a half years. Cho was noted for being good at mathematics and English, and teachers pointed to him as an example for other students.[19] Back then, according to Kim, nobody disliked Cho and he "was recognized by friends as a boy of knowledge;... a good dresser who was popular with the girls." Cho kept a distance from others because he chose to do so. Kim added that "I only have good memories about him."[19][18] An acquaintance noted that "Every time he came home from school he would cry and throw tantrums saying he never wanted to return to school" when Cho first came to America in about the Second grade. [20]
[edit] Behavior in middle school and high school
Cho attended secondary schools in Fairfax County, including Stone Middle School in Centreville[16] and Westfield High School in Chantilly,[9] and by eighth grade had been diagnosed with selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder which inhibited him from speaking.[21]
During Cho's time in middle school and high school, he was teased for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. Some classmates even offered dollar bills to Cho just to hear him talk.[16] According to Chris Davids, a high school classmate in Cho's English class at Westfield High School, Cho looked down and refused to speak when called upon. Davids added that, after one teacher threatened to give Cho a failing grade for not participating in class, he began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth." "The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China.'" Another classmate, Stephanie Roberts, stated that "there were just some people who were really cruel to him, and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn't speak English really well, and they would really make fun of him."[22] Cho was also teased as the "trombone kid" for his practice of walking to school alone with his trombone. Other students recall crueler names and that most of the bullying was because he was alone.[23] Christopher Chomchird and Carmen Blandon, former classmates of Cho, stated that they heard rumors of a "hit list" of other students Cho wanted to kill. Blandon stated that she saw the "list" as a joke at the time.[24] While several students recalled instances of Cho being teased and mocked at Westfield, most left him alone and were not aware of his anger.[25][26] Cho graduated from Westfield High School in 2003.[5] In 1999, during the spring of Cho's Eighth grade year, the Columbine High School Massacre made national news. Cho was transfixed by it and soon became dark and menacing. "I remember sitting in Spanish class with him, right next to him, and there being something written on his binder to the effect of, you know, '"F"' you all, I hope you all burn in hell,' which I would assume meant us, the students," said Ben Baldwin, a classmate of Cho.[27] Also, Cho wrote in a school assignment about wanting to "repeat Columbine." The school contacted Cho's sister, who reported the incident to their parents. Cho was sent to a psychiatrist. [1]
[edit] Selective mutism diagnosis
Immediately after the incident, reports carried speculation by family members in Korea that Cho was autistic.[28] However, no known record exists of Cho ever being diagnosed with autism,[29][30] nor could an autism diagnosis be verified with Cho's parents. The Virginia Tech Review Panel report dismissed an autism diagnosis[31][32] and experts later doubted the autism claim.[33]
More than four months after the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported on August 20, 2007 that Cho had been diagnosed with selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder which inhibited him from speaking. The Virginia Tech Review Panel report, also released in August 2007, placed this diagnosis in the spring of Cho's eighth grade year, and his parents sought treatment for him through medication and therapy.[31] In high school, Cho was placed in special education under the 'emotional disturbance' classification." He was excused from oral presentations and participation in class conversation and received 50 minutes a month of speech therapy.[21] He continued receiving mental health therapy as well until his junior year, when Cho rejected further therapy.[31]
To address his problems, Cho's parents also took him to church. According to a pastor at Centreville Korean Presbyterian Church, Cho was an intelligent student who understood the Bible, but he was concerned about Cho’s difficulty in speaking to people. The pastor added that, until he saw the video that Cho sent to NBC News, he never saw him complete a sentence. The pastor also recalled that he told Cho's mother that he speculated Cho was a little autistic and he asked her to take him to a hospital, but she declined.[34]
Forbidden by federal law to disclose (without Cho's permission) any record of disability or treatment, Westfield officials disclosed none of Cho's speech and anxiety-related problems to Virginia Tech.[33]
[edit] Demeanor at Virginia Tech
During 2003, Cho's freshman year at Virginia Tech, he enrolled as an undergraduate major in business information technology, a program that included "a combination of computer science and management coursework offered by the Pamplin College of Business."[35] The program was considered one of the most challenging disciplines at Virginia Tech and was listed as No. 6 on the "list of majors with the highest median starting salary after graduation."[35] By his senior year, Cho was majoring in English.[7] Virginia Tech declined to divulge details about Cho's academic record and why he changed his major, citing privacy laws.[35]
At the time of the attacks, Cho lived with five roommates in Suite 2121, a three-room dormitory at Harper Hall,[36][37] located just west of West Ambler Johnston Hall on the Virginia Tech campus.[38]
Family efforts to help Cho
The Virginia Tech Review Panel report shed light on numerous efforts by Cho's family to secure help for him beginning as early as middle school.[31] However, when Cho reached 18 and went away to college, the family's ability to help waned. Cho's mother, becoming increasingly concerned about Cho's inattention to classwork, his time spent out of the classroom and his asocial behavior, sought help for Cho during summer 2006 from various churches throughout the Northern Virginia community.[35] According to Dong Cheol Lee, minister of One Mind Church – a Presbyterian church in Woodbridge, a community in Prince William County, Virginia, Cho's mother sought help from the church for Cho's problems. Lee added that "[Cho's] problem needed to be solved by spiritual power ... "that's why she came to our church – because we were helping several people like him." Members of Lee's church even told Cho's mother that "Cho was afflicted by demonic power and needed deliverance." Before the church could start its work, Cho returned to school to start his senior year at Virginia Tech.[35]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho
And so it goes, people will ignorantly "blame the parents", "blame the child", "blame the mental health industry", etc.. etc..
The real cause(s) aren't so simple, it's a collection of things, it seems most of his problems stemmed from leaving Korea and suffering from an anxiety disorder which was drastically worsened by the social environment at Virgina Tech. If this was a story about a young man, alive today, I'd think he might go on a massacre, just knowing what he's been through.
"Hey guys, Cho has a list of people he's going to kill at this school."
"Haha, what a loser, he's a pussy he'll never do it, fuckin' whiner."
This might be the kind of dialogue that went on, instead of a serious inquiry into Cho's problems and what fellow students could do to help. Like, stop picking on the poor guy, realize that mental illness is a fucking reality and not a choice. Don't be selfish little shitheads. That kind of thing. So, is the problem Cho's parents, or the parents of all the shitheads that gave him a hard time at school? Or is it ultimately nobody's fault, but a natural outcome of society that we need to address collectively? I think we need to individually take responsibility for the way we interact with other people and do our best to raise our children as informed and respectful of all human life.
Another young man turned into a spree killer, his name was Charles Starkweather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather
Charles Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on November 24, 1938, to Guy and Helen Starkweather. The third of eight children, Starkweather never recalled any bad memories of his home life. Despite being born at the tail-end of the Great Depression, Charles would later recall that the family never went without food or shelter; nor was he ever abused as a child. The Lincoln community considered the Starkweathers to be a strong family with well-behaved children. Guy, the father, was by all accounts a mild-mannered man; a carpenter, he suffered frequent periods of unemployment due to crippling arthritis in his hands and a weak spine. During these periods Charles' mother Helen supplemented the family income by working as a waitress.
In contrast to his pleasant memories of his home life, Starkweather possessed no kind remembrances of his time in public school. Starkweather was born with a mild birth defect, Genu varum, that caused his legs to be misshapen, and he also suffered from a mild speech impediment, which caused him to be teased, picked upon, and beaten up from an early age. He was considered a slow learner and was accused of never applying himself, although in his teens it was discovered that he suffered from severe myopia which had drastically affected his vision for most of his life.
The only aspect of school in which Starkweather excelled was gym, wherein he found a physical outlet for his growing anger at the world around him. Starkweather used his newfound physicality to begin bullying those who had bullied him, and soon his anger stretched beyond those who had been cruel to him to anyone whom he happened to dislike. Starkweather quickly went from being considered one of the most well-behaved children in the community to one of the most troubled. His high school friend Bob Von Busch would later recall:
“ He could be the kindest person you've ever seen. He'd do anything for you if he liked you. He was a hell of a lot of fun to be around, too. Everything was just one big joke to him. But he had this other side. He could be mean as hell, cruel. If he saw some poor guy on the street who was bigger than he was, better looking, or better dressed, he'd try to take the poor bastard down to his size. ”
Along with Von Busch, Charles developed an obsession with James Dean, and began to groom and dress himself to look like Dean. Charles sympathized with Dean's rebellion, believing that he had found a kindred spirit of sorts, someone who had suffered ostracism similar to his own, to whom he could look up. Starkweather developed a severe inferiority complex and became self-loathing and nihilistic, believing that he was unable to do anything correctly, and that his own inherent failures would doom him to a life of poverty and misery.
His accomplice, was 14 year old Caril-Ann Fugate,
Around 1957 nineteen-year-old Starkweather was introduced to fourteen-year-old Caril Ann Fugate.
Charles quit school shortly after he met Caril and took a job at a warehouse near her school so he could see her every day. Starkweather was considered a poor worker. His boss later recalled, "Sometimes you'd have to tell him something two or three times. Of all the employees in the warehouse, he was the dumbest man we had."
Charles taught Caril to drive, and one day she used his hotrod and crashed it into another car. Charles' father, as the legal owner of the vehicle, was forced to pay the damages. This caused a physical argument between Charles and his father. Guy Starkweather, having finally reached his breaking point with his son's behavior, kicked Charles out of the house.
Charles quit his job and went to work as a garbage man for minimum wage. Charles slipped back into his nihilistic views on society and life, believing that his current situation was the final determining factor in how he would live the rest of his life. He used the garbage route to begin plotting bank robberies, and finally found his own personal philosophy by which to live out the remainder of his life: "Dead people are all on the same level."
Fugate was also purpotedly abused by her father and disliked by her peers. We can see a bit of similarity here. This shit isn't new, it's just different. People have been cracking under the stress of life for as long as people have been around. It's only getting harder now to live up to the standards of society, all the while, certain members of society want to beat you down and diminish you while boosting themselves above everyone else.
In many of these cases the result is suicide.
In Cho's case, he had Ishmael Ax written on his arm.
Ishmael (Hebrew: יִשְׁמָעֵאל, Standard Yišmaʿel Tiberian Yišmāʿêl; Arabic: إسماعيل, Ismā'īl) was Abraham's eldest son, born by his wife's handmaiden Hagar. Though born of Hagar, according to Mesopotamian law, Ishmael was credited as Sarah's son (Gn. 16:2)[1] According to the Genesis account, he died at the age of 137 (Gn. 25:17).[2]
Judaism has generally viewed Ishmael as the son of Abraham.[1] Jews and Christians (the House of Israel) maintain that Isaac, Abraham's son by Sarah the free woman and the father of all Israel, rather than Ishmael was the true heir. This is supported in Genesis chapter 21 "in Isaac shall the seed be called".[3] The New Testament contains a reference to Ishmael where Paul defines the difference in Isaac and Ishmael in Galatians chapter 4. Biblically, Ishmael is used to symbolize the bondwoman - not free - Isaac symbolizes those that have freedom to choose, asserting such freedom is found in Christianity.[1] Islamic tradition, however, has a very positive view of Ishmael, giving him a larger and more significant role. The Qur'an views him as a prophet (although the KJV in Genesis 21 indicates that Isaac was called not Ishmael). According to the interpretation of certain early Islamic theologians whose view prevailed later, Ishmael was the actual son that Abraham was called on to sacrifice, as opposed to Isaac. In the Bible story God tested Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac. The story reflects the same story as given in Genesis where there is an evil older brother and the chosen younger brother. This is evidenced again in Esau and Jacob, where Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup.[1][4]
It is said that Abraham was originally to use an Axe to murder his son Ishmael, which could be the reason for Cho's using it. But Cho also came across as wanting to be a messenger of the Jesus type, so perhaps he viewed himself in the Christian tradition and fancied himself a martyr of human freedom.
Just about everyone experiences some degree of ridicule in high school and can relate to the receiving end of it. But not many experience that AND a mental illness.
Daddy didn't give affection
and the boy was something that Mummy wouldn't wearrrr.....
yeah but jeremy killed himself, he didnt take his classmates with him.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
well that is indeed an interesting theory. young men's motivations for joining up for both world wars in my opinion were more to do about the patriotic propaganda than their homicidal tendencies. not that i'm saying this applies to everyone. back then the level of respect for the governments and the establishment at large was so much higher than it is these days. they believed what the government told them because they had no reason not to. these days we know governments are full of shit and couldnt lie straight in bed under the threat of punishment by death. we now know that democracy works only for those who can afford to buy it. but then that really isnt democracy at all is it?
oh and i think access to firearms plays a big part in school shootings.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
The argument that poverty or social inadequacies cause these situations is a misdirected excuse. Throughout history poor children and misfits have grown up without resorting to violence. Why? Because they had direction at home. They have loving in tact traditional family lives. They were taught values, standards and morals. Today kids are taught to balk at authority, greed, selfishness and calous disregard for others.
Until society restores the family unit and its responsibilities, these things are just going to continue to get worse.
When a child has no reason to behave, they wont.
and what formula would that family unit would follow?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Tell us, how easy has it been for you to be a teenaged unwed mother? I'm sure you have had your struggles. Obviously you could have had an easier go at it if you had a "traditional" family unit in place.
Children need structure, security and direction. They need male and female (mother and father) influence. Couple that with love and unlimited time and you have a recipe for successfull child rearing.
Children who get stuck in a situation where parents are absent due to personal selfishness or because they have to work so much to make ends meet do not thrive. They get lost and the negatives of society suck them in.
i don't baulk at the so called 'traditional' family unit. i grew up in one. i dont however think its the only one that works.
i wasnt a teenaged unwed mother.
and my children have structure, security and direction. i have never been absent from my children's lives. and its been the most difficult thing ive ever undertaken in my life. and no i havent loved every minute of it. and with the fabulous benefit of hindsight there are things i would do differently.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
i marvel at your myopic view sometimes. yes i was pregnant before 18. the story doesnt change.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
first you say
Then you say
So which story is it?
how fucking dare you.
how do you know even know that the pregnancy reached term??
fuck you. you are nothing but a trouble making troll. your posts speak for themselves.
I love how people start to swear and call names when they don't like the message being sent.
think about it MS. i know you'll work it out without me showing you the way.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
it wasn't my mistake alone.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
where did i say i had a hard road? what i said was raising my children has been the most difficult thing i've had to do.
ive never said i was perfect. and sure ive made some decisions that with hindsight i'd do differently. i'm not psychic so i cant say whether if i was married things would be different. and i never said my way was better than any other way. tis just the way i took. for better or for worse and ive dealt with it.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say