Real issue behind school shootings and gun control

I've heard it before and I agree that mental healthcare is probably a direct route to curbing the amount of shootings.

Unfortunately, mental healthcare is not as controversial or interesting enough as talking about guns, so it seems to be ignored by the American public.

 

Guns really aren't the problem here.
I agree that bullying is a big problem in schools.
However, I'm not sure if that is the cause, either.

 

Your misconception that it is a teachers fault that people bully or are homophobic in the classroom is very misguided. Yes there are some that are not as protective as they need to be towards all students, LGBT or otherwise. But that is like saying "all police officers need to watch out for guns more".

Second, teachers are not always present everywhere in a school and cannot catch everything.

It is a more complex issue than just bullying however. But your blame of teachers is erroneous. Oftentimes classrooms are safe havens, I'm sorry if your school climate is not one of tolerance but not everywhere is like that.

 

well, american public seems to take issues based on american media...
and not to mention stigma of mental health care

 

No matter what way you look at it, if the shooter didn't have a gun it would have been a different story. I agree however that mental care and people fighting against bullying would help.

 

Activists are a wonderful thing and I hope you change the world. I also won't pretend that there aren't shitty teachers out there or bad school environments.

Bullying does affect everyone, not just gay, but those who are overweight, poor, of other religious or ethnic backgrounds than the majority. It should be expunged everywhere.

 

The real issue is America's fetish for violence and its shunning of sexuality.

 

I really don't think bullies are the main problem. Which sounds weird, until you think about this: In High School, most of the people are bullies and jerks.

From doing a research about this (ironically) for High School, I found that the main link was that the shooter(s) was mentally unstable due to being bullied (Columbine and VTech are 2 prime examples). Sandy Hook also had a mentally unstable person with a gun. Oh yeah, and remember the other shooting in Colorado? The one at the Batman movie? He was also clearly mentally unstable.

The only shooting I ever saw on record that had nothing to do with mental health was where a kid about 6 to 8 years old shot his sister, and that was on accident. He was playing with his father's gun and the safety was unlocked.

THIS IS WHY WE DON'T LET MENTALLY UNSTABLE PEOPLE HAVE GUNS.

And this is also exactly why I'm all for gun control, but reasonable gun control. If someone checks out as mentally unstable, you don't let them have a weapon, period, regardless of if they have a license or not (which they probably don't).
If you have to take the gun yourself and shoot them first just to stop them, then so be it. I absolutely hate saying that, but it's better than a bunch of kids dying because someone who's mentally unstable is on the loose.

This is also why I'm for any kind of reform of the way we treat mental health. Almost every country seems to be able to do it better than the US. Why can't we get our shit together?

Now, since a good amount of the shooters were being bullied, that could have been investigated and shut down. That may have helped a bit. However, if you look at the actions and things the shooters would say beforehand (Columbine shooters had an extremely hateful blog and hitlist going), most of that was directly linked to mental health alone, whether or not they were bullied. So I think bullying is a factor and an important one, but not nearly as big as treating mental health.

Another thing to mention is that nearly every single shooter has shot themselves after the fact, because they couldn't take what they had just done throughout their lives.

 

We are in agreement in that regard.

 

We need gun control for military weapons. However, we need to be more lenient on pistols and other hand guns. People shouldn't have the power to shoot 30 rounds in a single second, it's too much. It can't even be compared to other weapons that are in every day use. What, are people going to find an automatic knife shooter? Is someone going to carry around 100 bats and throw them at people to kill them? The issue isn't necessarily the guns. Crimes are bound to happen no matter what laws are implemented.

If someone comes with a legal assault rifle and starts shooting up the place, wouldn't that be an issue? The issue isn't banning all guns or giving everyone a gun. It's to regulate what guns are allowed and how people can use them. Concealed weapons can very well protect citizens. However, there's no logical reason for military weapons and rapid fire guns to be legally owned by people. Basically, when I'm saying is we should ban military weapons from citizens, but at the same time allow less harmful guns to be used as concealed weapons.

 

Mental health issues seem to be stigmatized as a weakness rather than as a legitimate medical issue.

You have cancer? People recognize that. You have depression? "Oh just toughen up".

Big world of difference and while I have understanding friends and family, a lot of people tell me to suck it up when I used to get into depressive phases.

Shooters are not necessarily in the right frame of mind to begin with. Mental issues, bullying and media exposure simply add to the mixture. But then again calling in bomb threats or other forms of retaliation are still prevalent out there but usually don't end in deaths so they don't get covered in the news.

 

I don't think bullying is the problem. Kids have been bullied since the beginning of time Back in the days, when people were bullied, they would go behind the shook and fight each other, now kids come in with an AK and kill people.