Malcolm Gladwell: How School Shootings Spread

[coreman]

In case you're not a regular New Yorker reader, Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, David and Goliath) had some unique thoughts on school shootings/shooters.

How School Shootings Spread - The New Yorker

NOTE: This is not an endorsement of the New Yorker or Gladwell, just thought some may find it interesting. If anything, I applaud that he didn't turn this into a gun debate. I realize that's not really Gladwell's thing (he's more of a social psychologist) but still...it's the New Yorker, after all. I'm sure they were disappointed he didn't make a gun control argument.

Basically, his premise is this: there were some demented, deeply psychotic individuals (Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris) who took this demented behavior and made it seem normal. He suggests that the key figure in [what the liberal media perceives as] a rise in school and campus violence is Eric Harris, the architect of Columbine. He's become a kind of heroic, mythological figure in this subculture of school shooters.

Shooters in recent days, post-Columbine? They talk about Eric Harris. They worship Eric Harris. They mimic the things he does—and his attack.

And, because of Columbine and other attacks like it, it makes the next one easier to commit. Like in a riot, the first person who throws the rock is a lot more radical than a 100th person.

Hear me on this: I'm not suggesting that I agree with even half of what he says. But as 2A supporters, gun owners and human beings, we should all abhor school shootings...not only because they kill innocent people, but because it makes our lifestyles that much more difficult. And I just think he makes some interesting points that, thankfully, that the debate out of the "gun control" realm.

 

[Drail]

Mass shootings have nothing to do with guns. They are quite simply the result of allowing mass prescriptions of psychotropic drugs to be mass marketed to people with mental problems with no monitoring of their effects by their doctors or their parents. We created these monsters and now we're having to deal with them.

 

[Thor]

That's why people in schools should be able to shoot back. The silliness will come to an end quickly.

 

[Fullmag]

I find this very interesting. Have read a couple of Gladwell's books and they definitely look at social matters in way that makes sense to me, which is against liberal thinking by the way. The thing about Columbine shooting and the medias coverage over and over is something that should very seriously be considered.

"Shooters in recent days, post-Columbine? They talk about Eric Harris. They worship Eric Harris. They mimic the things he does—and his attack.

And, because of Columbine and other attacks like it, it makes the next one easier to commit. Like in a riot, the first person who throws the rock is a lot more radical than a 100th person."

Kids see things see and react to events differently than adults, no brainer there. With 24 hour news coverage and instant access to news no one really knows how it's changed our society.

 

[Twangbanger]

Mass shootings have nothing to do with guns. They are quite simply the result of allowing mass precsriptions of psychotropic drugs to be mass marketed to people with mental problems with no monitoring of their effects by their doctors or their parents. We created these monsters and now we're having to deal with them.

Yes! Repped...Post of the Year! Why do people not understand this? Why didn't school shootings happen in the 1970s or 1980s? Use of these drugs in children is a grand-scale experiment that started in the 1990s, and some disturbing outcomes are starting to roll in. I have no problem with people being able to get the drugs from their doctor. But they were originally marketed for "temporary" depression, for things like post-partum effects, loss of a job, etc. In the case of children, they now have become the _default_ option for every kid with an emotional disturbance. Childhood is when the problem kids need to be identified and helped. It doesn't happen, because the parents now have an easy way out. But it's not a permanent solution to deeply troubled kids, it's just a Band-Aid. The school starts calling about Johnny. Mom talks to the doctor (not a psychiatrist), drives to CVS...and Johnny makes it through school and the phone calls stop. Until he's 20 years old, and out of control. The drugs work...until they don't, or teenage Johnny quits taking them. Then what?

Again, I have no issue with 97% of these things that are prescribed. But allowing them to be dispensed by non-psychiatric doctors to children is bad news. The drugs get dispensed by doctors with no specialized training in mental health, to parents who are in denial about the true depth of their child's problem. They are simply trying to avoid the stigma of a psychiatric diagnosis. Parents will do _anything_ to avoid admitting their child has a problem. The rest of the world pays for their irresponsibility. It's hard to prevent...but you can take away the "easy" way out.

Make Mommy go to an actual mental health doctor to get those drugs for Johnny. That's all.

 

[actaeon277]

I liked this article.
It actually dug in. Didn't just come up with "guns" or "psycho".

 

[actaeon277]

Third baby in three months dies after being tossed from New York window

People don't need guns to do horrible things.
They just copy the news.

 

[ghuns]

Mass shootings have nothing to do with guns. They are quite simply the result of allowing mass prescriptions of psychotropic drugs to be mass marketed to people with mental problems with no monitoring of their effects by their doctors or their parents. We created these monsters and now we're having to deal with them.

Yes! Repped...Post of the Year! Why do people not understand this? Why didn't school shootings happen in the 1970s or 1980s?

Did you even read the article?

What drugs was John LaDue taking that made him want to kill his family and classmates?

 

[coreman]

Make Mommy go to an actual mental health doctor to get those drugs for Johnny. That's all.

Very well said!

 

[chipbennett]

First, school shootings are so statistically rare that to assert that they have "spread" is unsupported.

Second, to the extent that they have spread, I have a simple question: how many school shootings happened before the fed.gov designated schools as Gun Free Zones, and how many have happened since?

 

[cobber]

https://youtu.be/27aWHudLmgs

Some countries, the attackers wield knives. Don't think it's the tool that really makes the difference...

 

[danbailey24]

As a school teacher... This is an interesting discussion. As a parent, this scares the hell out of me. My kids Re going through the school system that I went through. I was NEVER scared in school. Now, I think about school violence EVERYDAY! I actually find myself thinking of scenarios and options if something goes down. I saw a link here showing a gun-safe with finger print reader in a teacher desk. MADE A TON OF SENSE

 

[level0]

As a school teacher... This is an interesting discussion. As a parent, this scares the hell out of me. My kids Re going through the school system that I went through. I was NEVER scared in school. Now, I think about school violence EVERYDAY! I actually find myself thinking of scenarios and options if something goes down. I saw a link here showing a gun-safe with finger print reader in a teacher desk. MADE A TON OF SENSE

Your school board can authorize you (or anyone) to carry in school, you may want to make a case to them.

Also, glad to hear you are thinking about scenarios. Stay vigilant!

 

[windellmc]

Did you even read the article?

What drugs was John LaDue taking that made him want to kill his family and classmates?

Nearly every mass shooter of the last 20 years has been on SSRIs. This is a known side effect of these medications when used in those under 25. Another known side effect when given to those under 25 is suicide. All this shows up in the clinical trials and is not in dispute.

 

[CPT Nervous]

I hope the the masses will understand this very simple point, and quit blaming us for these tragedies.

 

[Leo]

In my opinion, media is the cheer leader fanning the flames. Violence on the school yard has existed for all my life, probably well before the 1960's. Of course at that time, it was in high poverty and high crime areas and got little attention by the mass media. As long as it was just poor blacks, latino's, or immigrants making violence in poor inner city schools, no one cared. The Musical "West Side Story" was not pure fantasy, it was a story about life in that sector of society, common in major cities. No on cared to read about it or report on it.

Now enter the moral break down of the family. The rejection of tradition Biblical values brings the same disfunction as the slums into the wealthy families. Upper middle class kids living in relative weath, going to upper middle class schools start doing violent crime. BAM! the media is all over it, and it is a "national emergency! And since it is kids from money, IT SELLS news! roll the presses.....

Clear back to Plato's "Republic" or Augustines "Confessions" we recognize that youth WILL demand attention. Some will get so needy, they will settle for negative attention, if that is all they can get. Weathy kids with every priviledge in the world are now running the street like those with no hope. Now, the negative attention becomes "cool".

Just like Pot, as long as it was just a habit of old black jazz musicians, no body cared. When rich daddys were sending their kids to college, and instead of being devoted to their studies, started smoking pot, we labeled it a national problem and passed laws against it. The laws made more problems and more crimes than they solved.

Failures in drug laws do not stop lazy parents from medicating their children almost from birth to make them "easier to handle", too bad the drugs also keep them from developing normal reasoning and compassion. Vacant moral guidance and medically stunted mental behavior is a really hazardous formula for a society. In this mental state, the need for 15 minutes of fame is as intoxicating as narcotics.

The youth of today, are raised by parents who were allowed to be raised in the permissive, post Chrsitian society. The minimum moral standard of any generation, will be the highest moral goals of the next generation. The country is crumbling because the accepted moral standard for most of the nation is finally as low as the fatherless, morally and economically vacant standards that used to describe the poor in inner city slums.

I do not agree with Everything Malcolom Gladwell wrote, but I agree, it is a trend, and it is accelerating.

And the only answer liberals can come up with is "IT'S THE GUNS!!!!!!!"

 

[Fullmag]

Leo, you expressed some of my thinking quite well. If I can, I'll throw in two more cents. The media in their desire to make money by the headlines they write have in essence caused this problem. Add to the problem of the school system wanting the problem children to be manageable, medications to help them learn. My children both were recommended to take Ritalin, we refused. One is making more than I am right now and the other is getting mostly A's in college now.

Then take the desire to be famous that only the media can offer tied to some depression and the natural need of a child wanting attention, any kind of attention good or bad. Mix that with some 24 hour news that pounds home the point so that even most adults do not know how to process the way it makes them feel. It makes for some uneasy ways to undo this mess. So the 'smart people' or liberal thinking ones think guns are the root of it all! Even had nurse at the Kids doctor office explain that to me.

 

[ghuns]

There has NEVER been a time in human history where you were less likely to meet a violent end than today, in this "post Christian" society.

How can we get a less hyperbolic assessment of the state of the world? Certainly not from daily journalism. News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a reporter saying to the camera, “Here we are, live from a country where a war has not broken out”—or a city that has not been bombed, or a school that has not been shot up. As long as violence has not vanished from the world, there will always be enough incidents to fill the evening news. And since the human mind estimates probability by the ease with which it can recall examples, newsreaders will always perceive that they live in dangerous times. All the more so when billions of smartphones turn a fifth of the world’s population into crime reporters and war correspondents.

The World Is Not Falling Apart