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Interesting. I had a taste of that in grade school. Back then every boy had a pocketknife at school. And most of us had a least a BB gun. It never occurred to me to use either. I figured out how to deal with the problem in the traditional way.

You wouldn't dare act like that. Somebody might get hurt. You would be ashamed of yourself and so would everyone else. There would be heck to pay for a long time, then you would go there!

The money quote:

The problem is not with the school shooter. The problem is with the system that allows a person to be psychologically abused, punched, kicked, have food thrown at them, gum put in their hair, pants pulled down in front of class, clothes stolen during gym and a million other things kids do to other kids—the weaker, geekier, uglier, poorer, less fortunate kids. I have heard so many people say over the years, “It’s just kids being kids,” “They will get over it,” “Every kid gets picked on,” “It helps toughen a kid up” and many other insane comments that point away from the problem: the kids who are doing the bullying—the kids that are carrying out the violent acts that push the calm, passive kids to snap.

If you want to stop school shootings, do not look to ban guns or turn schools into prisons. Instead, learn to identify a bully and deal with these situations so as to prevent anything worse from happening....

Bullying has been going on for a heck of a lot longer than school shootings. I'd hazard a guess that it goes back hundreds of years.

School shootings are a relatively recent phenomenon, despite the fact that lots of us grew up in the Gun rack and hunting rifles in the school parking lot era.

Why? Because for previous generations, it just wasn't an option. Now that school shooters are instant celebrities, it probably seems like a heck of a way to go out.

I'll agree with the sentiment and it certainly doesn't help, but there are thousands of children being bullied on a daily basis that don't shoot up the place.

Being bullied is a terrible thing, but our enlightened zero-tolerance policies leave kids fearing to appropriately respond to bullies other than attempting to de-escalate (always a best first option), and our electronically enhanced society produces too many kids with poor inter-personal social skills. In my youth, more bullies ended up pushing someone a bit to far and getting their tail ends handed to them -- which was a pretty decent dis-incentive to bullying behavior. It seems that we may be reaping what we have sown, unfortunately.

Middle Age Russ wrote:Being bullied is a terrible thing, but our enlightened zero-tolerance policies leave kids fearing to appropriately respond to bullies other than attempting to de-escalate (always a best first option), and our electronically enhanced society produces too many kids with poor inter-personal social skills. In my youth, more bullies ended up pushing someone a bit to far and getting their tail ends handed to them -- which was a pretty decent dis-incentive to bullying behavior. It seems that we may be reaping what we have sown, unfortunately.

I remember my old man teaching me how to fight...and using those skills from time to time. One of my best friends growing up was a guy that laid a whoopin on me in the playground.

Now, I'm not sure what parents are teaching their kids...but it certainly doesn't appear to be manners or morals.

Entitlement. I don't recall the feeling of entitlement, by me or anyone else I knew, as a kid growing up a long, long time ago. I also don't recall a great deal of handwringing over being offended either. Most of us learned to deal with unfairness, live with it, better luck next time. If you were lousy at something and didn't try to improve, tough beans.

When we held our 50th Reunion a couple of years back, we were pleased to discover that nobody in the class had been in prison, or run for Congress, a gratifying symmetry. One of the classmates had been shot dead in a bar by the husband of the prostitute he was buying drugs from, and 2 of us were lawyers.

Middle Age Russ wrote:Being bullied is a terrible thing, but our enlightened zero-tolerance policies leave kids fearing to appropriately respond to bullies other than attempting to de-escalate (always a best first option), and our electronically enhanced society produces too many kids with poor inter-personal social skills. In my youth, more bullies ended up pushing someone a bit to far and getting their tail ends handed to them -- which was a pretty decent dis-incentive to bullying behavior. It seems that we may be reaping what we have sown, unfortunately.

I've related this story on here before, but when we lived in Commiefornia years and years ago, before it became Commiefornia, my older brother was attacked by a bully at school and he gave the bully a proper beat down. The high school principal drove him home and told my parents how proud they were of him at school for taking care of a bully. He drove him home so the bully's friends couldn't jump him walking.

By the time I got to Junior High, in what was becoming Commiefornia, defending yourself against being attacked by a bully meant automatic suspension from school. It's pretty universal now. I had a coworker here in Texas whose son got suspended from school for defending himself against an attack. When he asked the principal what his son was supposed to do in the face of an attack the principal told him he should curl up in a ball on the ground to minimize any damage from the blows being inflicted.

It's no coincidence that this "enlightened" liberal attitude seen in places like the UK, our large urban areas, and in our schools produces more crime in the streets and more bullies in the schools. It's also not the unintended consequence of "good intentions." It's deliberate and the aim is produce a passive and dependent population that is easier to control.