What causes school shootings?

Is it because of bullying? Influence of the media or something else? I ask this partially because it has to do with a film story I am developing but mostly because i am curious what you guys think?

when kids have no where to turn to after going through hardtimes in there life.they resort to violence on others,to make the rest of society feel their pain.lots of things contribute to the whole mental breakdown of a school shooter in my opinion.

I think it has more to do with bullying than anythign else. Children and young adults who are in school live in the here and now, they don't live in the future and what could be. If they are bullied they usually get depressed because highschool is the time one needs to fit in. Bullying causes a social disorder and in extreme cases, if the person being bullied is a 'loose cannon' and he fantasizes about killings those that are bullying him, he will often crack. And since guns are so easy to come by in the US you have a school shooting.

Is it because of bullying? Influence of the media or something else? I ask this partially because it has to do with a film story I am developing but mostly because i am curious what you guys think?

Film-Guy

Any answer you're gonna get here is going to be insignificant and just a popular scapegoat.

Truth is, I don't think anyone knows. If it were that simple, then school shootings would end, there'd be no more poor or ugly people, and we'd all spend our free time dancing around under a big rainbow while squirrels and hummingbirds sit on our shoulders.

Blame it on the parents. Why don't these kids have anyone to trust and talk to? Because their parents are busy. How do they get guns? From their parents/grandparents who are busy and don't notice the gun is gone. And if the bully's parents were doing their job, the bullying would be stopped. It is all because of the lazy, overindulgent parents that don't discipline their children or take the time to listen to them. Citrus25

Guns that play violent video games, obviously.

All the factors people have mentioned are all valid. I like to emphasize that availability of "illegal" guns and bullying are major factors in what causes school shootings. I say illegal guns since most of the time kids who have been the shooters in such incidents acquired their guns illegally. Bullying adds to whatever psychological problems the child may already have thus becoming the trigger which finally makes them decide to do what they end up doing.

[QUOTE="Film-Guy"]

Is it because of bullying? Influence of the media or something else? I ask this partially because it has to do with a film story I am developing but mostly because i am curious what you guys think?

MrGeezer

Any answer you're gonna get here is going to be insignificant and just a popular scapegoat.

Truth is, I don't think anyone knows. If it were that simple, then school shootings would end, there'd be no more poor or ugly people, and we'd all spend our free time dancing around under a big rainbow while squirrels and hummingbirds sit on our shoulders.

Blame it on the parents. Why don't these kids have anyone to trust and talk to? Because their parents are busy. How do they get guns? From their parents/grandparents who are busy and don't notice the gun is gone. And if the bully's parents were doing their job, the bullying would be stopped. It is all because of the lazy, overindulgent parents that don't discipline their children or take the time to listen to them. Citrus25

I have a problem with that.

If a kid knows enough to know that snorting coke and shooting up schools is wrong, and is something that should be hidden from his parents, then the parents did their job.

They taught the kid that shooting people is wrong, and that's why the kids try to hide their plans to shoot people.

And if the kids know that what they are doing is wrong, then HOW do you blame the parents who actually DID teach them that shooting people is bad?

Bad parenting and poor counselling services. I don't think bullying is the issue. I was verbally bullied a lot in school and never felt like bringing a gun to school and killing people. Sure they made me feel worthless, but two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm going to go with instability in the individuals that were worsened by their school suroundings and other factors, family, friends, experiences so on, and once they were pushed to the brink (not everyone can handle the same amount of pressure) they snap and find an outlet that solves all their problems (in their minds).

I would say blaming your lonleyness on other people.

EDIT: Also, the virginia tech guy was just a sicko... and I'm pretty sure he had Antisocial Personality dissorder.

Bad parenting and poor counselling services. I don't think bullying is the issue. I was verbally bullied a lot in school and never felt like bringing a gun to school and killing people. Sure they made me feel worthless, but two wrongs don't make a right.

foxhound_fox

And on that note, LOTS of people have bad parents, and the VAST majority of them never shoot up a school (or shoot ANYONE, for that matter).

So...I'm not sure how much you can blame bad parenting either. For EVERY proposed cause of school shootings, the vast majority of kids who fit into that category do NOT shoot people in schools.

Bad parenting and poor counselling services. I don't think bullying is the issue. I was verbally bullied a lot in school and never felt like bringing a gun to school and killing people. Sure they made me feel worthless, but two wrongs don't make a right.

foxhound_fox

Societal influence in a very broad sense. Unchecked rage is a necessity, and this rage typically stems from how an individual is treated by other people. This allows the individual to overcome the revulsion most people would feel at the idea of indiscriminately killing other humans, because he no longer sees the individuals as humans, but as mere symbols of the torment he has endured at the hands of certain people or groups of people. In essence, he comes to hate humanity itself... and that's an incredibly dangerous state of mind to be in if you happen to have access to lethal weapons and an enviroment where no one has a legitimate means of self-defense.

Mental instability and a predisposition towards violence will make an individual an even greater threat. Then all you need is the means to do it, and a firearm rights obsessed Western world provides ample opportunity for a rage-filled, unstable individual to acquire a means of coldly murdering his schoolmates with ease, offering little to no chance that said schoolmates could fight back.

OT threads cause school shootings

Probably far, far too many factors to discuss acurately within a Gamespot OT thread. I mean, I'm sure just about any aspect of a child's upbringing could have an influence over violent outbursts.

OT threads cause school shootings

It's alot of things but the overuse of anti depressants and lack of parenting is a HUGE part.

Homework!

Ignorant jerks provoking mentally-unstable kids.

Schools cause school shootings, if schools didn't exist than school shootings won't happen. I say we ban schools.Lonelynight

[QUOTE="Lonelynight"]Schools cause school shootings, if schools didn't exist than school shootings won't happen. I say we ban schools.sAndroid17

Schools cause school shootings, if schools didn't exist than school shootings won't happen. I say we ban schools.Lonelynight

:lol:

Shades of Simpsons there. "Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!"

Many of them are psychos. Anyone remembers that guy who before doing a school shooting, uploaded some videos on you tube of him shooting to trees and then another one of a picture of him pointing a gun and a school pic? He was planning to do that for days, he didn't wake up and said "today i'm going to kill all my friends and all the people at school"

There's also a pic of him holding a gun and he was wearing a shirt with the caption "humanity is overrated"

Here's the link to the wikipedia article about that case: Click here

If you want to see the video click here

That's my opinion

Crazy people cause school shooting, millions of people get bullied at school but only something like 0.000001% actually resort to killing people.

[QUOTE="sAndroid17"][QUOTE="Lonelynight"]Schools cause school shootings, if schools didn't exist than school shootings won't happen. I say we ban schools.MagusAugury

[QUOTE="Lonelynight"]Schools cause school shootings, if schools didn't exist than school shootings won't happen. I say we ban schools.pianist

:lol:

Shades of Simpsons there. "Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!"

[QUOTE="MagusAugury"]

[QUOTE="sAndroid17"]banning guns would be a better idea.... or banning AMERICA!sAndroid17

Angry anti social kids who probably think the world is full of crap and develope a hatred for their high school peers and BAM!

religion so many nasty things are caused by this nonsesnses1wel

jk right?:|

Stupid, over-emotional, selfish people. Scums of society.Famiking

agreed, people who spend too much time self pitying themselves or think that their life is horrible when they're healthy, have an education, family, and friends.

Blame it on the parents. Why don't these kids have anyone to trust and talk to? Because their parents are busy. How do they get guns? From their parents/grandparents who are busy and don't notice the gun is gone. And if the bully's parents were doing their job, the bullying would be stopped. It is all because of the lazy, overindulgent parents that don't discipline their children or take the time to listen to them. Citrus25