What REALLY causes school shootings

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I‘ve seen many different people talk about what causes school shootings. Jack Thompson thinks video games cause school shootings.

"This is not rocket science. When a kid who has never killed anyone in his life goes on a rampage and looks like the Terminator, he's a video gamer."
-Jack Thompson

Conservapedia seems to think atheism and belief in evolution are the cause.
http://conservapedia.com/Seung-Hui_Cho
http://conservapedia.com/Columbine_High_School_Massacre
http://conservapedia.com/Jokela_School_Shootings

Michael Moore seems to think that school shootings are caused by the American media telling people to be afraid.

Here is what I think causes school shootings – I think that in any school environment there are going to be popular kids and some unpopular kids and I think that whenever there are unpopular kids some are going to go nuts.

When I was in grade 12 I was depressed, lonely and got picked on. I often fantasized about brutally killing the people who called me a fa***t and a p**** or even blowing up the school. I probably would have done something horrible at my school if I was driven any further. I came very close to going nuts.

Video games weren’t on my mind while I was thinking those thoughts. Evolution wasn’t on my mind and neither was atheism. What was on my mind was how I was all alone and how I was afraid to tell anyone how I felt because I thought they’d just make fun of me.

I did listen to angry music back then – mostly Mastodon. I listened to that music BECAUSE I was angry. My violent thoughts didn’t come from the music. If a kid listens to angry music and plays violent video games and then shoots up his school then he probably listened to angry music and played violent video games BECAUSE he was already upset and angry.

What I am saying is school shootings are inevitable. Some people don’t WANT to think they are inevitable but they are. School shootings won’t go away if you start banning violent media.

There are always going to be kids that go nuts. That is reality. Deal with it.

Conservapedia.. oh boy. Anyways
Michael Moore's film 'Bowling for Columbine' while guilty of some generalizations, the interview with Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park) made a lot of sense to me. High school is made to seem as if the rest of your life is based on that experience. Lots of kids go through abusive times here from teachers or students, or are marginalized, or ignored, or whatever. But the point is they are led to believe that this is all it will ever be. Most people eventually learn after high school that this is totally not true, and that life is what you make it. Every day going in and being abused emotionally and physically and thinking this is the rest of my life has shown itself through school shootings to be a terrible line of thought that needs to be addressed in the high school environment. I think the only way we can ever see this problem solved is a total overhaul of the education system with social justice between students and between educators and students enforced through constant monitoring (perhaps through cameras...) to spot those perpetrating abuse. I am probably not alone here in the opinion that most parents of those really abusive kids will refuse to believe what they are being told and thus the abuse continues unabated, and often the targets of abuse will not be allowed to have a voice of their own. If everybody is held accountable for their actions and the blinded opinion of parents can be discounted, perhaps we can see solutions to this horrible phenomena. I still remember the Dawson College Shootings very well. I was in another Montreal CEGEP at the time and we were evacuated because there were rampant rumors of a coordinated attack on all of the Montreal area CEGEPS. The perpetrator of those shootings probably went through a similar situation I have described. Anyways, that's just my two cents. I don't think video games or religion (unless you're a Jihadi...) have any bearing on school shootings

I agree with everything you guys are saying. I've been stressed to the max lately, and I've been getting the sense that things will never get better for me and that this is all I'll ever know. It was like this in high school and it's still like this now. For me to say my blood is boiling is an understatement. I should probably stay out of PPR right now cuz this s**t is overwhelming.

Sociopaths. Period.

People with guns cause shootings.

Next question?

ruveyn

There can be individual pathologies but in general humiliated people can be dangerous. It doesnt even matter if they are actually humiliated by the standards of others, just that they believe they've been humiliated.

See Germany post WWI, The palestinians, the uprising in Tunisia, many mass shootings, etc.

Really?

Here is part of what Seung-Hui Cho said in the video he sent to NBC News before his shooting.

"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul, and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and defenseless people."

Do those sound like to words of a sociopath to you?

Yes, actually, it does.

I do agree that they are sociopaths, but I would say it is induced in many cases. And in the cases where they start as sociopaths, the behavior of others towards them would inevitably drive them to do what they do

People are born sociopaths, but I agree there are usually outside influences that contribute to them flipping.

The problem is that you can't really pinpoint one element in all cases because they're all set off by different things. It's rather like a stalker. Something as insignificant as the color of shirt you're wearing could set them off.

It's generally accepted that whatever it is, it causes them to feel inferior and rejected in some way.

I agree with you DarthMetaKnight, and I feel sorry for what you and Cho (first names come second in Korea ) had to go through at school. I went through much the same in school.

I think as long as there are evil, douchebag children and teenagers to cause people like Seung-Hui to do this, will there be school shootings. I blame society and other people, not Cho for doing this.

EarlGrey, not all people are born sociopaths. They are created because of environmental factors.

Last edited by dunbots on 15 Feb 2011, 5:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

True, true. When I meant 'induced sociopathy' I didn't mean the disorder but rather characteristics that one might end up having that are 'sociopathic' due to constant rejection or etc

Ah... gotcha.

Same thing, at root, that causes suicide bombings. It just gets plugged into a different framework.

Because sociopaths are known for committing themselves to future generations of the weak?

Not all sociopaths are exactly alike.