1 killed in suburban Cleveland school shooting

Kids always say that in the aftermath. That's how all the false rumors (many of which have turned into urban legends that just won't go away) about Columbine came about.

The truth is always a lot more complicated.

(sorry, this is a huge pet peeve of mine).

 

So ... in other words, he went to high school.

 

Not sure if he was bullied. Based on what I've read, the shooter at one time hung out with all the kids he shot. In some way he became disassociated with that group. Today he came up behind them in the cafeteria and shot them, then took off running and shot another girl. Someone described it as "burner on burner" violence.

Sounds like three of the people he shot are dead, another in pretty bad shape.

 

He did say "if that's the case."

Or did you not read that part?

 

I did. But why even bring it up?

At best, it's lazy thinking. At worst, it perpetuates a dangerous urban legend.


(again, sorry, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine).

 

Agree with Rick. Pet peeve of mine, too.

Just reported on Nightline that the perpetrator was not bullied. Sounds like he had a complex or two. He recently posted on Facebook some crap about how the whole world should bow at his feet. And he ended that status update nicely with "Die, all of you."

 

What's so dangerous about it?

It took a number of years for Columbine bullying legend to be debunked, but it took the bullying urban legend, plus some other school shootings by kids who were actually outcasts, for schools to finally start taking bullying seriously.

Before that, it was "Kids just being kids, nothing to see here."

 

No, no. That's German for "The, all of you."

 

Shit. I assumed he was referring to multiple pieces of dice.

 

It's wrong because it's "blame the victim" mentality. It's dangerous because it misunderstands the various causes of school shooting violence, which makes it harder to stop.

It all starts with the cognitive bias of the just-world fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Whenever something bad happens to someone, we instinctively try to find a reason to blame them. We all do it. It's just the way human beings are wired.

That's why the bullying causes school shootings mantra is so appealing. We want to feel like they must have done something wrong (either bullied kids or didn't take bullying seriously enough when others did it) so that we can feel like there's control over random acts of violence. It's our mind's way of coping with the fear, by convincing itself that it couldn't happen to us because we wouldn't make those mistakes.

It's dangerous because by painting a false portrait of school shooters, we make it harder to identify and stop them. Everyone's looking for the picked-on kids wearing trench coats, which is a big red herring.

Bullying is very serious and it should be taken very seriously. But it doesn't cause mass murder.

 

I would say it hasn't caused mass murder ... yet. Who knows if some bullied kid would have shot up his school, only to be stopped because someone remembered other shootings, took the kid's threats seriously and stopped him.

I would think most people wouldn't have a clue about a "Just-World hypothesis." I think most people's first instincts when they hear of a school shooting is, "Oh shit, I hope those kids are safe."

And then after the incident ends, people want to know what would make a kid decide to kill a bunch of people. I'd never heard of the school, and for all I knew, it could have been about a girl, or bullying, or a gang killing, or two rivals for the cheerleading squad. Bullying is just one of the factors to be considered.

 

Ignored, untreated (or undertreated) mental illness causes school shootings (well, the indiscriminate kind that we're talking about, not just individual murders that happen to occur at schools) It's invariably a part of these shootings.

Bullying, family troubles, teenage love drama, etc. all show up here and there on the list of perpetrators' motivations. But untreated and undertreated mental illness is the common thread.