The reasons that we see all these shootings here and not in other countries are probably a number of factors with varying degrees of influence.
We do have a lot of guns and there is no denying it. But in and of itself it cannot stand alone as a sole or even dominate reason. We have always had a lot of guns.
Bullying used to be personal, now its public. The internet is forever to some teens and they may feel they are permanently stigmatized by online bullying, If there is no hope, rage can occur.
The ability to handle conflict in our current generation of kids has been compromised by helicopter parents who insulate their children and them chuck them into a cruel world where they suddenly aren’t the perfect snowflake they thought they were.
The one thing I learned when I was bullied (and I was a victim of serial and horrible bullying as a kid, real nightmare stuff) was that someone could hate your guts and be a decent person otherwise. That sometimes people just don’t get along and nothing you do can change that.
I learned how to take a punch, how to ignore cruelty cast my way, and how to stand up for myself and stay true to who I was. And I learned that not everyone was going to like me, and I learned to live with that. Heck, I am a Liberal posting in a Hannity forum, so my work sort of still continues.
There was a movement a few years ago called “It gets better” and I really thought that was the correct approach. Get these kids to thicken their skin, learn to accept being disliked by some people and understand it gets better. That life was never going to be the idealized and perfect world their parents ostensibly perpetuated upon them.
And that success is the best revenge, not violence.
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