Texas School Shooting

[Aguila Blanca]

Someone mentioned the elephant in the room. There are more than one elephant, and one of them is bullying. And reports are now coming out -- from fellow students -- that this shooter was bullied. The Parkland kid was somewhat of an outcast --- I don't know if he was "bullied," but he wasn't exactly the homecoming king. The two shooters at Columbine were social outcasts. If we dug into all the school shootings between Columbine and Santa Fe I suspect we'd find a lot more of the shooters were bullied or in some way excluded from the society of the student population in general.

But the schools don't want tio deal with it, because they don't want to face the answer. I saw it, up close and personal. My adopted daughter was bullied at our local high school (where, many years before, I was captain of the tennis team and class president) to the point of having a nervous breakdown and not being able to set foot on the school property. I complained to the point of the federal Department of Education conducting a six-month investigation -- at the end of which they concluded that there had been no bullying. That's how well the school covered it up. Privately, a teacher in the school told me that of course it happened. She knew because the same thing had happened to her own son, two years before. And the school simply denied that it happened in her case, too.

Could it be that my adopted daughter has a severe case of special snowflake-itis? She does tend in that direction, and I recognize it. But ... we enrolled her in a private, parochial school and she excelled. So it wasn't entirely in her imagination. A huge difference is that the parochial school doesn't let the inmates run the asylum. The teachers are strict, and they don't tolerate bullying. At the local high school, the teachers look the other way because they don't want to deal with it. Same with the administration. So they pull a Sergeant Schulz -- "I saw nussing, I know nussing!"

We, as a nation, need to start getting serious about stopping bullying.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

What if we would co-locate ,on one 160 acre campus,three school buildings,k-12, a police substation,office,etc,an ambulance station,and maybe a fire emergency station.
Along with a park.
These satellite locations may have benefits throughout the community. A train or traffic jam won't compromise response time. The Parks dept maintains the school yard,etc.

And armed response is never more than 200 yds away.

Except that most armed cops aren't in the station except at shift change, they're out on patrol.

 

[scpapa]

At the local high school, the teachers look the other way because they don't want to deal with it. Same with the administration. So they pull a Sergeant Schulz -- "I saw nussing, I know nussing!"

I think some if it is that the teachers know that they will be held responsible, in a negative way, if they try to discipline them. They will be sued, fired, demonized, etc. The students know they have a lot of power and they use it to their advantage.

Rick

 

[TomNJVA]

I was bullied for a few years in high school some 50 years ago. No one told me I was allowed to shoot the bully. Dang!

 

[johnwilliamson062]

The teacher getting involved won't necessarily make things better. Most teachers know that.

Sent from my SM-J327P using Tapatalk

 

[Metal god]

There are more than one elephant, and one of them is bullying

While I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand and every situation is different . I don't by the bully argument . Reason being is it appears to me like so many other things the threshold of being bullied has become quite low . When I was in school being bullied was almost always physical . Now a days is someone makes fun of your hair more then once you're being bullied . Get over it maybe your hair does look funny to others .

This seems to go to this new movement that everybody is a victim of some sort as a result of some kind of oppression . Oppressed because your a women , black , Asian , gay , trans , young , fat , skinny , poor the list goes on . Oh wait then there's I'm oppressed because I'm two or more of those things . Could it be that your just human and that in it self is not an easy thing to navigate .

Bullies have been around since the beginning of time and yet these incidents have only become more and more frequent as the individual has been able to observer these types of behaviors more often with greater ease .

Do we dare talk about social media and how it has made are kids more dependent on hundreds if not thousands of there piers excepting them . In my day I was only looking for acceptance from about 10 to 20 people out side my family . That as a young person is really not to hard to navigate . How ever now a days kids unrealistically feel they need to be excepted by way to many people that are just trolling them in the first place . How much pressure does that put on there young minds to do something more to be liked and or excepted . What happens when there extra effort does not produce the result they are looking for . Well now there is despair that they may never get out from under this weight of unwarranted judgement cast upon them . There is only so much any of us could take before something needs to change . The vast majority of are kids ultimately navigate there way through . How ever there is a very small minority that break from the pressure and react very negatively .

Well that got a little deeper then I intended ,. I'm going to stop because I feel rambling coming on .

 

[HiBC]

Except that most armed cops aren't in the station except at shift change, they're out on patrol.

With the right mind set,every idea proposed can be blasted out of the air like a clay pigeon at a skeet range.
And with the right mindset,many ideas,or improvements on those ideas,can work quite well.

My proposal was about doing something different.Why would we do something different the same way?

It might be that co-locating a park,police,fire,ambulance satellites and K through 12 schools on one campus might be a plan for future secure community development.

Maybe not.

What positive idea do you have to offer?

 

[SonOfScubaDiver]

I think the window for actually doing anything about school shootings has closed. They've become a common occurrence. We can talk all day about doing this, that, or the other, but that's all it is--talk. Blame it on whatever you want--godlessness, bullying, social media--it doesn't matter. Nothing's going to be done about it. We've come apart at the seams as a country.

 

[L2R]

Most everyone is looking for the smoking gun when a accident happens or a tragedy occurs.

I am paraphrasing from Malcolm Gladwell's book and referencing plane crashes to illustrate the point. It is never 1 thing that causes a plane crash. It is almost always 5 or 6 small errors happening at the same time that lead to a crash.

I believe that many posts above pinpoint many things that are adding up to this behavior.
The media giving murderers 15 minutes of fame
Hollywood promoting and celebrating violence
Bullying
Parents not around to raise their children
Parents protecting their kids to the point they cannot handle conflict or defeat.
Parents allowing the internet and to be the babysitter. and curiosity be their guide.
Safe zones where cowards are impowered

Add it all up and it becomes clear how this is happening. Add a few of these together and it becomes the tipping point (pun intended)

If Gladwell's research is accurate, then removing some of these issues would yield a reduction in mass murders. It would be interesting to chart when these activities became the norm in our society and see if there is a correlation to the number of mass murders in a given year.

 

[Bimus]

A lot of boys and girls under 18 hunt and from age 11 can buy a state hunting license . under 11 they must be accompanied by an adult . The youth has to have a Hunter Education number issued by the state . These youths are in the system the state knows where they live and that they promise to obey safety rules . The hunter safety lets them carry a loaded long gun in the field or a unloaded long gun to the shooting range .

Maybe high school students that have hunters safety training should be allowed to carry a cased long gun to school with there bullets in there pocket the cased gun is never to be opened unless there is a active shooter . I would hope they would never have to take there rifle out of the case . They could make hiding in a class room a little safer .

School have be come targets even students should be allowed to protect them selves and siblings when they are targeted .

 

[Hal]

Maybe high school students that have hunters safety training should be allowed to carry a cased long gun to school with there bullets in there pocket the cased gun is never to be opened unless there is a active shooter . I would hope they would never have to take there rifle out of the case . They could make hiding in a class room a little safer .

My initial reation to that was extremely negative.....extremely....then...
I thought about all the 16 and 17 year olds, that lied about their age & joined the armed forces & served in combat.
Maybe that idea isn't some sort of "moral violation"...

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Everyone focuses on recent school shootings in the U.S, as if school shootings is uniquely a U.S. phenomenon, and as if it never happened before Columbine.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/horrific-1913-german-school-shooting-proves-article-1.3999463

Here we see that it was a reality in Germany as far back as 1913. Guns were used, but insanity was also a factor. And then take particular note of the second case: the assailant used a home-built flame thrower. This just helps to demonstrate that, as L2R mentioned above, it's never just one factor. And that's the problem with making it all about guns. Guns are only the tool of choice, they are not the cause. Remove the guns, and crazy (or evil) people who want to attack schools and kill children will just use other weapons, such as pipe bombs, pressure cookers, propane tanks (Columbine), ... or flame throwers.

I just read another article mentioning that the Texas shooter was bullied. This article also reported that the school system denied that it happened. My high school denied that my daughter was bulled, too. I do not believe these automatic, knee-jerk denials. Bullying is a common factor in many school shootings, but the school systems involved always deny that it happened. They have zero credibility on this topic, IMHO.

 

[NateKirk]

I think the best thing to do is train teachers to identify these students and engage them before hand; talk to their parents, sit down and talk with the student.

It's always a surprise when someone kills themselves, and it's always a surprise when a school shooting happens. I think it is partially because no one is paying attention. Maybe teachers should get involved and talk to the lonely kid in the back of the class who never talks and no one ever talks to, perhaps make some suggestions to them, and see whats going on at home as well.

Maybe this isn't the only thing that needs to happen to alleviate the problem, but it does need to happen. Kids see their teachers as much as if not more than their family's, so teachers are in a good position to take the initiative.

 

[thallub]

IMO, the real reason for the school massacre is:

The Texas school shooter was recently rejected by a female classmate he had pursued for four months. Finally the girl confronted the shooter in class.

Boys with fragile egos, don't like to be rejected by girls, especially in public.

One of Pagourtzis' classmates who died in the attack, Shana Fisher, "had 4 months of problems from this boy," her mother, Sadie Rodriguez, wrote in a private message to the Los Angeles Times on Facebook. "He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no."

Pagourtzis continued to get more aggressive, and she finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class, Rodriguez said. "A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," she wrote. "Shana being the first one." Rodriguez didn't say how she knew her daughter was the first victim.

The gunman repeatedly taunted students during the attack, according to another harrowing account posted to Facebook by one survivor's mother.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-shooter-20180519-story.html

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Yep, no coincidence that he started there.

Everyone focuses on recent school shootings in the U.S, as if school shootings is uniquely a U.S. phenomenon, and as if it never happened before Columbine.

No, they don't focus on US school shootings as if it didn't ever happen elsewhere. They focus on US school shootings because they keep happening over and over and over again, several times a year.

 

[Erno86]

I have no easy answer to the dire problem of massacres...school related or otherwise. Yet I happen to agree with the late Aldous Huxley --- "To allow the steam to be let off without doing damage to society or individuals."

How you go about resolving that problem...is still up in the air, but I fear that society is getting used to these school massacres --- should they dreadfully happen to occur again -- so much that it it will resemble a so-called "ho-hum" attitude by the majority of the general public; much like the reaction to the murders that occur in our inner cities.

 

[44 AMP]

I think the best thing to do is train teachers to identify these students and engage them before hand; talk to their parents, sit down and talk with the student.

I think this will involve a lot of time, effort and money for no actual benefit. Besides adding yet another thing we are expecting our teachers to do, think for a moment about what good does talking do??? And what about the negative impact on individuals, families, the teachers themselves, and the school system from "false positives". And don't forget that there will be people (and school administrators) who will take things to really stupid extremes, and feel perfectly correct and justified doing so.

When a child gets suspended for eating a pop-tart into the shape of a pistol, are you really confident in trusting the judgement of the administrators responsible??

while the false positives are bad, the false negatives are even worse, in that they don't see (or stop) the problem. Not too long ago there was a case where the family was worried, and called the cops. Cops came, talked to the young man in question for a couple hours (health & safety check), then left, declaring him to be no threat. He was calm, lucid, and rational, didn't seem to be depressed, or have anger issues, etc. They went by the book, and the guy passed with flying colors.

The NEXT DAY, that guy killed half a dozen people....

False negative.

Here's one that I have personal knowledge of, happened back when my kids were still in high school (which makes it over 20 YEARS ago, now...)

One of their classmates wrote a story, as an assignment in creative writing.
What the kid wrote about was a school shooting. A fiction story, per his assignment. Set in his school. (the assignment was to write the story, the choice of subject, and everything else was the writer's.)

The Teacher freaked. The School, freaked (and went into lockdown for a few hours), the cops, freaked, went to the kids house, took all his Dad's guns. AND his dad's computer.

After some time (and investigation, which took some days) it was decided that there was no actual threat. Took a few weeks more to get the seized property returned. I don't know if the family sued, or not, but I think there would have been grounds for that, though actually winning a judgement was problematical...
False positive

We, as a nation, need to start getting serious about stopping bullying.

Like we got serious with the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty, and war on (insert any and every other social injustice here)????

Bullies have been around since the beginning of time

There you go. The strong prey on the weak. it is a factor in natural selection, and you aren't going to change that. The point of educating our children is to learn the difference between what one can do, and what one should do. Some, just don't learn that, because for them, bullying others, works...until it doesn't, IF that ever happens.

IMO, the real reason for the school massacre is:

The Texas school shooter was recently rejected by a female classmate he had pursued for four months.

I think you're overthinking this a bit. The real reason for this, and all the other mass murders is that the killer WANTED TO DO IT, could do it, and did it.

WHY the killer wanted to do it is an intellectual exercise, but I think we delude ourselves thinking that knowing why one killer did it will, in any way, allow us to identify and stop another before they kill. People are NOT uniform, and identical in their thoughts and actions.

I'm sorry the poor lad had his heart broken, ego crushed, was humiliated in public when a girl turned him down, but thousands (tens of thousands??) go through that every single day, and they don't take some guns and go murder people on Valentine's Day to make a point...

Maybe high school students that have hunters safety training should be allowed to carry a cased long gun to school with there bullets in there pocket the cased gun is never to be opened unless there is a active shooter .

Maybe, but I think this is a singularly BAD idea.

If the downsides aren't obvious, you need to think about it a little more. I'll give you just two, to get you started... cops looking for a kid with a gun, and killing that armed kid who was only being a "defender". Another one, an armed "defender" shooting another armed defender, because no one knows who the actual killer is...

no, I don't see that as a good thing, at all...

 

[vito]

This morning I read that the shooter remained active, but not shooting continuously, for 30 minutes before being stopped by law enforcement. Think about that, 30 minutes. Its almost a miracle that only 10 were killed.

But I do not expect school officials around the nation to think rationally about this. How can you expect rationality from schools that become hysterical when a kindergarten student makes a "gun" shape with his fingers? When finding an empty 22LR shell case, not a cartridge, results in the SWAT team being called in and the school locked down? When those in charge of school districts argue that it not just OK, but praiseworthy when a boy says he demands the right to use the girls restroom?

Facts and common sense will not prevail. One of my own grown children openly proclaims that she intensely dislikes guns, that guns are, in her mind, a risk to her children, and that she does not want guns anywhere near them. She vehemently opposes arming teachers. She does not want her children's schools to appear like a prison with metal detectors and armed guards. When I ask her how that will protect my grandchildren when a madman or evil person with intent and arms enters their school? Her answer is, "make all guns illegal". When I ask her if she really thinks that would stop criminals, terrorists or others from obtaining or making firearms, she just says "I hate guns, they should all be outlawed". Sigh.

 

[Metal god]

I think this will involve a lot of time, effort and money for no actual benefit. Besides adding yet another thing we are expecting our teachers to do, think for a moment about what good does talking do??? And what about the negative impact on individuals, families, the teachers themselves, and the school system from "false positives". And don't forget that there will be people (and school administrators) who will take things to really stupid extremes, and feel perfectly correct and justified doing so.

When a child gets suspended for eating a pop-tart into the shape of a pistol, are you really confident in trusting the judgement of the administrators responsible??

+a million

 

[thallub]

This morning I read that the shooter remained active, but not shooting continuously, for 30 minutes before being stopped by law enforcement. Think about that, 30 minutes. Its almost a miracle that only 10 were killed.

i have trouble understanding that.

Dmitrios Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for about 30 minutes in a warren of four rooms, killing seven more students and two teachers before exchanging gunfire with police and surrendering, officials said.

.......................................................................................................

Authorities have offered no motive, but they said in a probable-cause affidavit that the suspect had admitted to carrying out the shooting.


The gunman told police that when he opened fire, he avoided shooting students he liked "so he could have his story told," the affidavit said

http://www.startribune.com/texas-students-who-supported-parkland-endure-own-shooting/483104981/#1