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too_old_to_be_clever t1_jdckck3 wrote

What is it that drives the youths of today to feel this is a viable outlet? I don't remember this being a thing when I was in school in the late 80's and early 90's.

What can we realistically do about it that doesn't involve blast doors and bullet proof windows that people seem to be fans of these days.

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WaterFriendsIV t1_jdcwpae wrote

Former teacher here.

If you are a student who is forced every day to go somewhere you aren't successful, have no friends, teachers expect you to fail, and you are frisked and treated like a criminal every day, you are going to despair and feel hopeless. This will turn into resentment and anger. Now add easy access to guns and the question isn't "why does this keep happening?" it's "why isn't this happening even more?"

For 30% of students, high school is pretty fun. You may have lots of friends, excel at sports, and maybe even date. Teachers like you, your parents share your successes with other people. You are college bound.

For another 30%, school is tolerable. You have passable grades, go to events once in a while, have friends you hang out with, and may or may not have plans to go to college one day. It's not your favorite place to be, but it's not forever, and you have the idea that things will be better after high school.

Another 30% hate school. They find it mind-numbingly boring, can't wait to be done, and wouldn't go to a dance or sporting event if you paid them. They have one or two people who are friends and are closer to them than most family members. They smoke weed to be able to get through the day and play video games to escape and have something to look forward to.

School is painful for the last 10%. They only go if forced. They are isolated and alone. They are bullied daily, if not hourly. They might survive it until they can drop out. Or they might resort to killing the people that they feel are responsible and then themselves.

For some kids, school is already prison. It is a hopeless place they endure, if they can. Until school changes, this will keep happening. Easy access to guns just adds gas to an already burning fire.

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BleedOutCold t1_jddpeow wrote

> you are frisked and treated like a criminal every day

There is no universe in which a kid gets to continue attending school in-person after bringing a weapon in, and constant searches aren't required as a condition of that impressive display of societal willingness to not just immediately crumple an objectively dangerous-to-other-kids child up and throw them away.

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captaincaf t1_jdgn9wp wrote

Im a former teacher. I worked at a school where a kid brought a weapon in and was back the following week. Charter school. You would be surprised by the lack of recourse that teachers have. If he is expelled, he goes to a different school and he’s still a threat. He drops out? Still a threat to greater society. This is why you should vote for candidates who support more funding for the education system. One method to reduce student isolation is to increase the amount of counseling at schools. Proven to work, but there’s no money for it.

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TheRavenSayeth t1_jddkm12 wrote

This is so spot on. School in its current form is so inefficient that it becomes daily torture for a lot of kids. I can’t imagine we’re made to endure 18 years of sitting in a room listening to someone tell us something then quiz us over it again and again.

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humdaaks_lament t1_jde0fpr wrote

Education isn't designed to educate, it's designed to sort and grade.

It filters for people who are ideal cogs in a 19th-century factory.

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juicebronston t1_jdfapah wrote

Only the 30% who hate school smoke weed? This doesn’t match my experience at all.

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dr_set t1_jdgssqp wrote

Best take I have read on the issue.

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Self-Comprehensive t1_jdcwwjk wrote

It was totally a thing in the 80s and 90s, it just wasn't so extreme. It ramped up after Columbine in 99 though.

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Felevion t1_jdeif7i wrote

Lines up with when the internet started to really take off too. It's a great thing but at the same time allows troubled people to reinforce their issues. Then add on the media constantly going on about it which makes copycats more likely.

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[deleted] t1_jdclj9e wrote

[removed]

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BleedOutCold t1_jdcm8cq wrote

> guns were harder to get in the 80s

What are you smoking? There's a great case to be made that specific kinds of tacticool firearms are marketed more aggressively and occupy a bigger chunk of the market share these days, but in terms of pure ease of access the 80s and 90s were definitely less restrictive times for buying (much less possessing) guns in general and handguns in specific.

[Edit to incorporate response to later, now deleted, comment]

> There is simply vastly more guns in America now then in the 80s.

Are you...are you suggesting that if someone wanted one in the 80s, there just weren't enough for sale? Because that's just screaming I wasn't alive in the 80s! The US population has also increased roughly 50% since 1980, and of course we're concerned about access, which is a per capita thing.

>Plus in the 94, we had a ban on assault weapons, which expired in 2004

Heh, you're not real clear on what that thing did, I see. I used to own a few 12 round mags with the RESTRICTED LEO/GOVT USE ONLY 10-94 branding...they came with a legally purchased pistol I received from a FFL around 2002. All the 94 "ban" did was change what the stocks on the new ARs in the shop looked like, and how expensive the old ARs and standard cap mags were...that's it.

>shooting with assault weapons have grown exponentially since

Yes, numbers are what they are. But you're mistaking correlation with causation here. Moreover, 10 drops in a bucket is an exponential increase from 1 drop in a bucket...but we're still talking drops in a bucket. The staggeringly vast majority of US gun homicides were and are handguns.

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[deleted] t1_jdcoq53 wrote

[removed]

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dwilkes827 t1_jdcspgd wrote

you also got expelled from school in the 80s instead of just patted down on the way to class if you threatened to shoot people

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WaterFriendsIV t1_jdcwuxx wrote

Where do the expelled kids go?

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dwilkes827 t1_jdcx5u3 wrote

I don't know. I wasn't saying they should expel kids, just pointing out that's what they did in that time.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jde9gk3 wrote

The ones that [I] knew about ended up in other schools. (Possibly ones that specialized in maintaining discipline and safety.)

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LT-Lance t1_jdctjyb wrote

Harder to get? Back then schools still had gun/hunting clubs. It was normal to bring your hunting rifle after school. At least those in the Midwest.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jdcqssq wrote

People constantly talking about school shootings is probably a factor.

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BluePinonPancake t1_jdcva9t wrote

The medias favorite topic

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zombienutz1 t1_jdcxd69 wrote

Chaos and tragedy fuel our media. And anything that is a "feel good" story is typically about a celebrity's new clothing line or politician's book.

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Hooterdear t1_jdcxgzj wrote

But I could talk about school shootings every day and not have the desire to commit one.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jdd1qyq wrote

Analogously, millions of people in the US have guns and don't commit (or want to commit) school shootings either. Even so, gun control proposals are a popular response.

It's obviously true that media coverage of school shootings isn't sufficient to make people commit them, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a factor in people's decisions. (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion)

> ... A study conducted in 2015 suggest that the Columbine shooters inspired a minimum of 21 mimicked shooting and 53 attempted plans to commit such an act in the U.S. over a 15-year period. ... (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764218763476 )

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KaiserMazoku t1_jdcwru4 wrote

crazy how people constantly talk about this thing that constantly happens

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Skyzuh t1_jdda71i wrote

Yeah let's bury our heads in the sand and it'll go away.

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Bekiala t1_jdcwce3 wrote

Kids probably are no different but the US has a huge proliferation of guns now and schools are not allowed to expel students without finding alternative means of educating them.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jdd6qis wrote

Can you expand on what you mean by "huge proliferation of guns now?" Gun ownership rates have mostly flattened or dropped over the last 20 years. (https://www.pewpewtactical.com/gun-ownership-through-the-years/ )

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Bekiala t1_jdddhk2 wrote

I'm a bit dubious about the website you have linked. In discussions about guns there are so many rabidly anti/pro gun groups. I try to stay away from these.

What I am referencing is that the guns bought over time don't go away. They stay in the population. We can make gun control laws but about half of Americans already own guns. Any new laws won't really affect this fact. . . . .irk . . . I'm no expert on laws not guns so maybe there is a gun control law that would cut down on our suicides and murders but I am a bit dubious. I would be happy to change my mind if you can argue for a way we can improve things.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jddh5pk wrote

> ... What I am referencing is that the guns bought over time don't go away. ...

Ah. I misunderstood. I thought that "huge proliferation of guns now" was intended to be about some kind of recent change in gun availability or gun ownership. I think that everyone agrees that there are hundreds of millions of guns in private hands in the US.

In case you care, it's not that hard to find other charts of gun ownership rates over time:

https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/gun-ownership.html

For reference about where Rand stands on gun policy:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA243-4.html

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Bekiala t1_jddqb5z wrote

Thanks for the links. This looks like a fairly decent organization.

Again, I'm all for cutting down on gun violence and specially suicide I'm just not sure what public policy would be effective.

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elizabeth-cooper t1_jdd4ej5 wrote

Colorado has the highest per capita mass shootings since Columbine.

The altitude makes people insane. Literally. High altitude can impair cognition and increase symptoms of mental illness.

Make Colorado wild again.

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Miguel-odon t1_jdfipim wrote

South Park was never funny until I lived in Colorado. I blame oxygen deprivation.

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synchrohighway t1_jdclo7x wrote

Easy access to guns. Youths in other countries feel the same depression and pain and rage and play the same violent games and watch the same violent tv and movies and use the same social media that sometimes promotes violence, but the access to guns is what keeps school shootings down.

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RyuNinja t1_jdd4x3o wrote

It is inaccurate to dismiss the role of American culture and ideals in our current issues. Other countries do have measured differences in the reported mental anguish etc... it is not equal across countries.

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Tegoto t1_jdddkd2 wrote

Precisely this. The US is unique in how deeply dystopian our society is compared to other "first-world" countries. We have a very inaccessible healthcare system, pervasive economic insecurity, a deeply atomized and divided society. All of this and other things add up to emotional stress that inevitably breaks some people. The idea that we can just get rid of guns and everything will be fine is ignoring the actual issues.

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[deleted] t1_jdcnj8s wrote

[removed]

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jejacks00n t1_jdcqy8f wrote

Oh cool, I guess there’s nothing to be done here. Close up shop boys, this guy says it’s just the news cycle killing kids.

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Rufus_Reddit t1_jdcs0bh wrote

Maybe you mean shootings in general, but school shootings seem to be on the rise. Wikipedia lists about 8 school shootings per year in the 2000s, about 25 per year in the 2010s' and about 36 per year in the 2020s so far. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present) ) I guess reporting standards could have changed or something.

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homerteedo t1_jdcow0l wrote

Gun control. But we’re the only country where that won’t work for some reason. /s

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