After I’d read that the Trump shooter had looked at photos of Trump and Biden and their upcoming speech locations and the fact that the shooter was a lone wolf and bullied at school, I read part of the Wikipedia page about the Uvalde shooting . The Uvalde shooter also was a lone wolf and also used an AR-15. My thoughts right now are like this :

  • The lone wolfs probably have suffered badly from an inferior complex due to bullying and alienation
    and wanted to do something which made them feel historically “significant” instead of feeling completely “useless”.

  • The US appears to have a pretty dominant machismo culture (Think about GOP with their MAGA, it is humiliating for women and minority groups) and so-called snowflakes are looked down upon. This is very bad for everyone involved.

  • Cops are afraid of citizens having an AR-15 on them.

What can be done ?

  • Should vote with our wallets ? Like stop using exTwitter now that Elon Musk has publicly shown support for Trump ? (On Mastodon I’ve seen many comments about people that did cancel their subscription to the New York Times and that seemed to have some effect. Finally the NYT is posting more critical articles about Trump and Project 2025.)

  • Should people talk more often to each other and avoid alienation ? In books of Gabor Maté he talks about the fact that most people in society look down on hard drug addicts but these junkies are still human beings. And the same goes for homeless people and refugees of course. They are still human beings. No need to automatically view them as inferior beings, right ?

  • Should we limit our screen time on mobile phones ? Are we silently producing a sort of zombies that cannot think for themselves anymore ? Should tech companies be obliged to make phone apps less addictive ?
    Should mobile phone usage during class in school be forbidden ?

  • Should we promote exchange projects as part of cultural improvement ? Like say 50 people from Congo Republic in Africa swap places with 50 people from California for 1 year, and then after swapping back talk about the experiences.

  • Should we in our education system or during leisure time educate people more on what happened in World War II and what we can still learn from that ? For example the book by Umberto Eco about how to recognize a fascist ( Ur-Fascism ) could be used.

  • Should bullying at school be pro-actively approached and make victims and bullies talk to each other under professional supervision ?

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Should bullying at school be pro-actively approached and make victims and bullies talk to each other under professional supervision ?

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Let kids fight. You’re NOT going to prevent bullying in school at that age. You’re just not. At that age, the bullies think they can get away with anything…except now they’re right. The schools will punish the victim just as much as the bully if an incident is brought to their attention. So now victims aren’t bringing their bullying to anyones attention.

    But when I was in school, it was different. I got bullied for the first 2 weeks of school. Then I punched him in the mouth. Knocked out 2 of his teeth, cut my own hand, and that was that. He nor anyone else bullied me the rest of 6th grade.

    And I moved schools, and had to do the same thing in 7th grade.

    And 9th grade.

    And 10th grade.

    You get the idea. Anytime I was in a new school, kids thought they could just bully me. And I said no. With my fist.

    No bullets fired. No tragedy. Just a string of kids with broken noses or knocked out teeth.

    Schools these days have let the issue get so out of hand, that now kids gang up in groups of 30, and it’s all “your crew vs my crew” while a bunch of kids not in the fight record on cell phones. Then someone pulls a knife, or a gun, and everybody scatters. Then the news shows up to cover a story about dead kids.

    And so you look back at the first school shooting, columbine, and realize that these “bullies” are like the preppiest douches ever. If the columbine kids had just grew some balls, and threw a punch, it would be impossible to say where the butterfly effect would take us today. But it would be different, and I’d like to think better.

    I can’t definitively say what the bullying was in Columbine. But those pussy kids don’t seem like fighters to me. They look like the type who shop at the gap, and “do brunch”. Their bullying was probably all words. One punch, boom, done.

    I can never remember a single public shooting in the 90s. The closest thing would be the unibomber, and the oklahoma city bombing. But nothing like today. I guess I have to commend MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and any other big sports arenas in America. You never hear of shootings in a sports venue where it would do the most damage. 70,000 around a football field could probably kill 300 people in seconds.

    But none of this existed until columbine. And no, I’m not counting the JFK assisination, or the Lincoln assasination. Those weren’t public shootings. Those were political shootings that happened in public. At no time was the general public the target.

    Now we have to have mental health support that doesn’t exist. Look at these shooters. Always male. Men (and even boys) don’t have a place to vent. It’s a common to not even have friends you feel close to in that way. Wifes will ask their husbands what the boys talked about. And there won’t really be answers, because we don’t talk about deep things. We talk about who’s starting in the game. What meat venders are new to the area. How many marbles can Todd fit in his mouth? Wait, no, how many marbles CAN Todd fit in his mouth??? No way it’s 100. I say 50 max…200??? You’re crazy!!! Ok, I got $10 on this. TODD!!! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE…AND BRING MARBLES!!! WHAT? NO! NOT FOR YOUR BUTTHOLE!!! Has Todd been putting marbles in his butthole? Why would that be the first thing he thinks? Heeey, Todd, how many of those marbles can you fit in your mouth??? BECAUSE I GOT $10 RIDING ON THIS, THATS WHY!!! DON’T FUCK ME OVER TODD!"

    Tangent aside, you’ll notice nothing of significance was discussed. Not even though Todd is going through a nasty divorce. It’s not that guys don’t care…we just have no way to talk about it. Societal norms are that guys don’t talk about that stuff. You’d lose your friends if you tried. Women will think less of you as a man if they saw a guy cry. Not all women, but a higher number than you’d think.

    Some guys don’t even like sports that much, but its a safe topic that won’t get emotional in a real way. It’s the safe option.

    The problem is, men ARE just as emotional as women. But we gotta push it down into the deepest darkness we can, and never speak of it again. Until one day, we just lose all control, fly off the handle, and mentally break. Thats when bullets start flying, and bodies start mounting. And the final straw could be over some trivial shit too. Maybe Target was out of that queso cheese you like for the 3rd time. And now you’re remembering eating nachos as a kid before your dad walked out on you as an 8 year old. But you can’t cry. People will look down on you. Gotta hold it together for everybody else…but fuck everybody else! Nobody cares about me, why do I care about them?

    And then BAM BAM BAM just like that years of repressed emotions come flying out in violent ways. In uncontrollable ways. In ways that were never planned. It just happens, because there is no other outcome.

    And it all leads back to schools. If that guy hadn’t been bullied for 12 years, he’d have less to repress. Because emotional scarring never goes away. The things that hurt you at a young age, will hurt you if you make it elderly age. Why did Becky turn you down for valentines day in 1st grade, and say you had a stupid face? Again, trivial on it’s own, but it leads to a bigger picture. And all because society is too scared to let a 14 year old punch another 14 year old. This modern world is the outcome.

    • piefedderatedd@piefed.socialOP
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      4 months ago

      The example you are giving about fighting back turned out to be in your favor.
      But things could have gone wrong, especially when a whole group would have backed the other guy.
      And by that you are sort of advocating a survival of the fittest which is maybe not a good idea
      when you are small and timid versus some strong guy.
      I believe it is not wrong to involve school personnel when bullying happens.

      In Europe anti bullying policies were implemented years ago. I remember reading that in newspapers.

      Here is an example of a school which has anti-bullying policy :
      https://www.eeb3.eu/app/uploads/2022/03/B3-Anti-bullying-Policy-EN.pdf

      • Our Anti-Bullying Policy is based on the principles that:
      • Each individual must be treated with respect
      • Bullying is never an individual problem, as it degrades the atmosphere at school.
      • Bullying is a problem that can be addressed.
      • All members of the school community (school staff, parents and pupils) are called upon to prevent and
        react against all forms of bullying.
      • All members of the school community must have the opportunity to be listened to, respected and
        supported.
    • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 months ago

      Gavrillo Princip and Lee Harvey Oswald show it’s hardly new.

      Both bullied outsiders who wanted to show the world they weren’t weak and could leave a mark on history.

      Edit: your overall point about the constraints on masculinity though is very much on the mark I think, though. All the more reason to break down gender norms.