i think learning to stand up to bullying of all kinds is absolutely essential for one’s mental health. one’s self esteem is shattered by the inabilty to stand up to this. i admire my son, J. he got teased one time and did what i never had the guts to do when i was coming up: he slugged the little stronzo. i’m so proud. the little babo (big mouth) had it coming. needless to say, my kid’s self esteem is intact.
if kids knew the power of a good kick to the balls followed by an elbow across the little fucker’s head, they’d never think about picking up a gun cause they’d be proud of themselves. all bullying is just a facade anyway. stand up and they find a way out. you just have to see thru the facade and be ready to come across with the goods.
anyway, that’s my mental health philosophy for raising healthy kids.
We had the same stuff in Germany some time ago. Black coats also. One guy shooting his classmen and several teachers. Finally he met an older teacher who said his name.
Then he froze and the teacher could lock him up in a room where the shooter ended his life, it is not sure if the bullet had stuck in the rifle before when he met the last teacher.
Was is Erfurt.
Later, press first made a hero out of the teacher and later everyone suspected him to have been in cooperation with the killer, what was proven to be wrong after some month.
Is it the same scheme always? A guy bad in school, not good in social contacts, wearing black and … playing the violent computer games. But I am tired of this discussion if computer games contribute :s
I think the issues in this current school tragedy are much more complex than initially meets the eye and is rooted in part to the relationship between American history and the Ojibway Nation in Minnesota. In 1700
it is absurd to overlook the gun issue in cases like this… people snap for all kinds of reasons, pharmaceutical or otherwise, but the repercussions of people snapping are limited to how much damage they are able to inflict… from personal experience of living in a violent country where gun ownership was the norm, and living in a country where gun ownership isn’t, it is obvious how when people snap and they have access to guns it situation is infinitely worse 99% of the time… an example from personal experience, a minor fight outside a pub, the looser, drunk, pissed off and beat up, goes home, comes back with a handgun, shoots the other fighter in the face… in a country where guns are illegal, access to guns is ‘n’ times harder, situations like this are ‘n’ times more likely to have non fatal outcomes…
somebody wrote that having a gun isn’t a prerequisite for violent outbursts leading to death of innocent people especially in schools etc. maybe not but whilst a kid bent out of shape on hormones and anti-depressants may be able to wreak some havoc with bombs / chemicals etc. they are much less suited to a ‘spur of the moment’ type attack… also they are much more difficult for an untrained “amateur” to make and also more difficult to use successfully since the likelihood of getting noticed, malfunctioning etc. increases ten fold… a gun on the other hand, makes anyone able to see straight and move their index finger back and forth, instantly capable of handing out death and disfigurement at a rate of 100 rounds a minute… this easy and immediate access to deadly force, makes any fool, no matter how physically and mentally weak they may be, a lethal force… this is probably half the reason for handgun ownership, not only in the US but worldwide…
in a country like the US where there is a pervasive culture of gun ownership and solving your problems with violence, it’s simple statistics that are the reason why school and other rampage shootings are practically endemic to the US…
Indeed the gun issue should not be overlooked. Guns (along with alcohol) were introduced to the Indian Nations and have become a norm throughout the US.
Alcohol consumption, unemployment and violence are high on reservations which are under US federal jusisdiction (If I remember correctly the BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs). Of interesting note is that behind the Red Lake Tribal leader stood a US attorney and FBI agent: no (non-indian) representatives from local or state level. The relationship between any Indian nation and the US government is contentious at its best.
The anger of a youth stripped of cultural identity, and without strong positive role models set the stage for this tragedy. Things are never as simple as they seem.
[quote]“When I was growing up, I was taught (like others) that Nazi’s were evil and that Hitler was a very evil man ect,” Weise wrote in one posting. “Of course, not for a second did I believe this. Upon reading up on his actions, the ideals and issues the German Third Reich addressed, I began to see how much of a like had been painted about them. They truly were doing it for the better.”
In other posts, he wrote that he believed a National Socialist movement could work on his reservation and planned on trying to recruit some members at school when it started up last fall.
“The only ones who oppose my views are the teachers at the high school, and a large portion of the student body who think a Nazi is a Klansman, or a White Supremacist thug. Most of the Natives I know have been poisoned by what they were taught in school.”
The public school system, he wrote, “has done more harm than good, and as a result it has left many on this reservation misled and misinformed.”
[/quote]
He wasn’t a nazi. He was a completely screwed up kid without a mother and whose father had blown his brains out. I doubt he really really knew anything substantial about Hitler or nazis – he probably just liked their cool uniforms and swastikas, their impressive parades and their power, and as a screwed up, miserable teen (teenage years are tough for so many kids; imagine how much tougher they could be if one had no family) who was apparently lacking in positive outlets and was probably filled with rage over his miserable family and his miserable life, the ultimate way to end all the loneliness and misery was in a raging display of power and fury, as displayed so often in video games and movies but as exemplified by hitler.
I agree with those who said above that ritalin is not the primary factor. Easy access to guns is more significant. But lack of a stable, caring family is surely the most universal factor in all of these cases. I would bet that every single kid who went on a school shooting rampage in the past decade or so either had at least one dead parent or had divorced parents.
School authorities ought to pay particular attention to obvious misfit unhappy loners, especially if they are aware of tragic family circumstances such as this kid endured and somehow try to provide counseling or support of some kind. But I suspect they often try to do just that, but there are countless misfit loner losers in school, it’s hard to predict who’s the most whacked out, and those in such condition probably overwhelmingly would resist any efforts to help them.
Nicely said, MT.
put these pestered kids in karate or boxing for a few months to give them confidence, then let them go back and kick these finnochio bullies’ asses and we won’t have gun violence, just bloody noses.
better yet, if you’ve got an italian uncle in the you- know- what, let him hang out with him for a few months. when he comes back to school he’ll be running the place, respectably i might add.
bullies? i hate bulliies.I bust their fuckin kneecaps!
I haven’t read anything that said this guy was taking Ritalin. Is that an assumpion we are making?
Violence just begets violence RantheMan(?). A real man can deal with tense situations by communicating. Please keep us informed as to what schools/parks/clubs your children will attend so the rest of us can keep our kids away from yours.
well, gumper lets look at it in a simpler viewpoint: i hate violence. in the end it SOLVES nothing. but we humans have two sides our higher side and our animal side. that part that comes from our primate ancestors is like 90% of some people’s psyche. they don’t want to reach higher. they act like a territorial monkey. theire music sounds like moneky music. they walk like monkeys. they just wanna be monkeys. my kids wanna learn. they want to be all they can be.
watch discovery. little monkey is always snickering in the corner trying to challange the other monkey. other money slaps him back over to his side when he crossess the boundary. tune in tomorrow. same thing.
people used to be nice. now they are monkeys. so as the chinese saying goes :
“kan ren jiang ren hwa, kan gwei jiang gwei hwa.”
they act like people, so do i. they act like monkeys in a nice place, i’ve got a salad fork in one hand and a steak knife in the other.and i don’t give a fuck if they die! that’s the truth. play the game, better accept losing as part of it.they fuck with me they lose big. i don’t care. but your point is well taken.
Why couldn’t they just take one look into those blank, evil eyes and tell? This guy was bad news.
looks like a sweet kid. this was all avoidable if school councilers took bullying seriously and dealt wih bullies who turn these kids into lunatics. anyway i’m off this topic. it hits too close to home in my life. goddamn bullies. may they all burn in hell.
Following Columbine, the FBI performed a 2-year study trying to understand what motivates school shooters and factors that might be used to evaluate potential at-risk candidates. Their final report is lengthy:
www2.fbi.gov/publications/school/school2.pdf
An interesting section can be found at pages 22 - 30, where they state the following factors that are not found in all shooters and don’t necessarily mean someone will be a shooter, but they seem to be relevant (no great surprises though):
PERSONALITY TRAITS
- Leakage (meaning the student intentionally or unintentionally reveals thoughts, fantasies, threats, drawings, etc., that may signal an impending violent act)
- Low tolerance for frustration
- Poor coping skills
- Lack of resiliency (unable to bounce back after problems)
- Failed love relationship/s
A couple of points.
The weapon of choice doesn’t matter. There have been knife attacks in Japanese and Mainland Chinese schools that have been just as deadly.
There are some kids who really, really need to be medicated. I have to deal with them everyday. The problem of the medicating of children is not the medication itself, but rather the over perscription of medication. A lot of time kids that are medicated are really spoiled and have never had any sort of parental guidenace of proper behavior.
I would be interested to hear what kind of people his grandparents were.
Exactly. Raise yer damn kids.
I’m sure the issues have been brought up ad nauseum in other discussions about this issue, but in reading about this kid, I feel very sorry for him.
Here’s a Native American teenager who is so disillusioned with the life that he sees: a strong cultural heritage which is ignored and spat upon by his own people, his people buying into their poverty and problems with alcoholism, gangs, gambling, suicides, and just plain dispair. He sees all this and wants to do something that uplifts his people and to make them proud of who they are and become the strong nation they once were before they were shoved onto a reservation and robbed blind of their land, lifestyles, and spirit.
So he looks into Hitler who in his own very controversial way, started off wanting the same thing for his people. I am not going to pretend that his view of Hitler wasn’t very naive and failed to take into account the horrible ways in which Hitler tried to achieve his goals, but most teenagers feel lost and in need of an identity and to be a Native American as well, whose people have as a whole have lost their identity, I can empathize.
Now, with all that other baggage, he’s an overweight kid who has endured horrible tragedies in his family and got picked on in school. His probably wasn’t a case of his parents neglecting him, from what I understand, since one was dead and the other was hospitalized. His was a case of a whole lot of shit hitting the fan at the same time and him not being able to handle the weight of it all.
ranthenamsays: put these pestered kids in karate or boxing for a few months
an option for a city dweller… But it is all very. very small towns up there that have started around a lake or a river. A tourist industry caters to people from the Twin Cities area who go up into Northern Minnesota for the weekend. There are also a lot of professional fishermen who compete on some of the huge lakes there.
rantheman said: better yet, if you’ve got an Italian uncle in the you- know- what, let him hang out with him for a few months
The “villagers” are mostly German, Swedish, Norwegian ancestery 8- 9 % Native American, who live off the reservation. Unless an Italian uncle likes fishing and hunting, (and a lot of beer) he would probably not be there…
This kid lived on a reservation!
US census bureau:
Red Lake 2000 population census:
1.82% White, 0.28% Black or African American, 97.69% Native American, 0.07% from other races, and 0.14% from two or more races. 1.47% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
The average household size is 3.53 and the average family size is 3.88.
The median income for a household is $23,224, and the median income for a family is $20,800.
36.4% of the population and 36.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 42.8% of those under the age of 18 and 44.4% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.