I think school violence comes from several things put together -- people
try to pin the blameon one alone but it is several things interacting:
--1 the sheer number of guns out there - makes it a LOT easeier for a
mentally unstable person to actually act out his/her pain in a murderous
way.
--2 stress: over whelmining stress from everything ranging from
information overload, population pressues, you name it throwing
scuscepitable (susceptibility may be inborn but that doesn't totally
determine it) into depression, etc; is creating a larger population oif
at-risk individuals. Some are strong enough to cope with stress. Others
arne't and they break. Rates of sucicide, violence and emotional problems
in gneral have been going up and up., anmd you see younger and younger
kids who are violent.
3--media violence: only in combination with factors #1 and #2: person is
(a) susceptible to emotional problems, and (b) has access to guns. In the
end maybe they "got the idea" from a violent film or whatever, but that
wouldn't do it by itself.
#1 is hard to deal with in America because guns are so tied up with our
culture. I would like to see less guns around though. *Something* has to
be done, and the NRA is so hard line they want unrestricted access to
assualt weapons! Pul-leeze!
re #2 We need to invest massivley in mental health especially for young
people. I don't know if we can or should do large scale psychological
screenings of youth, but parents and teachers and teens themselves need to
be better educated to recognize the warning signs AND TAKE THEM
SERIOUSLY. I feel sorry for that poor guy who tried to intervene but took
the kid's word for it that he wasn't really going to do it; now he feels
he is to blame. Morally maybe he is to some extent but getting judgmental
about it would be wrong because that's a terrible burden of guilt to carry
around. He can probably best atone to society by taking a personal
interest in getting involved with the prevention of future violence. Who
could stop a school shooting? Often it's another teen they confide
in. Sometimes it's an adult. Sometimes the parents, but perhaps more oftne
they are the last ones to know. Just recently a kid in our area was found
with a whole arsenal of bombs in his bedroom his parents knew nothing
about. He was going to blow up the junior college. - only a sharp eyed
person developing pictures of him with his guns at the one hour photo is
said to have averted tragedy. Parents should be taught to supervise teens
more.
Kids most often confide in another kid, and people should learn to stop
taking it for a mere joke.
#3 - well it would be nice if everyting were rated PG-13. Parents can and
should filter what their kids get. Parents should also KNOW their children
and whether they are strong enough to handle it. I think one positive step
the media should take is to have a youth oriented television show with
teen characters take on the issue. Years ago I saw one that took on
suicide - the audience saw it coming, what with this girl behaving in ways
indicating she was despondent, but her friends didn't. When she actually
killed herself at the end of the episode both characters and audience are
thrown into shock.
One local (San Francisco) neurpsychiatrist was quoted on the radio as
saying the boy in the school shooting almost certainly had a problem such
as a biochemical imbalance because merely being picked or teased for being
skinny (iirc that was the reason) and shy, would NOT have sent a mentally
normal youth so far "over the edge" that way. Everybody should be taught
that such problems exist and how to recognize them (best as we cah -
nobody's made a Star Trek tricorder that scans for serotonin
levels)...Sometimes you might be able to identify a high(er) risk kid in
advance in terms of genetics. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out with
the San Diego perpetrator that "Oh...his Aunt Jane was depressed, spent
time in a hospital." Or if one/both parent(S) used drugs and alcohol (why
the divorse?) Now a family history of problems does not mean one's child
is going to shoot anybody! but if depression runs in your family, you
should defnitely watch your teen more carefully for danger signs.
Kristin
