I spent my high school years in the town of Evanston, Illinois attending Evanston Township High School. My mother, because of work, moved me there from Kenosha, Wisconsin where I had friends and a strong social network, the first semester of my freshman year. ETHS was a HUGE school compared to my little school in Kenosha. With a plethora of diversity one would think that I could find a crowd to fall in with. At my previous school I had friends and kids I hung out with after school, but I would not have the same luck at Evanston. From the day I started to the day I graduated (one year early) I did not make one single friend. I ate my lunch in the bathroom – because food was not allowed in the library – then moved to the library to finish out the period (all that time in the library explains why I was able to graduate early). The simple fact of the matter was that I just did not fit in, not with any of the groups. I was not wealthy like many of the students, nor was I impoverished like many others, I was terrible at sports, but (at the urging of my family) tried out for the volleyball team anyway and was not selected, at the time I was too shy to participate in anything like debate or theatre. Despite what many people (those “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” people, those “get out there and try harder to make friends” people) believed, I was trying so very hard to make friends. I was desperate to be accepted by someone, anyone – but there was NO ONE. I was bullied for being fat (looking back I was only as size 12 and would love to be “fat” like that again), I was tortured in the hall as I went to my Latin class every day for three years by a group of Spanish speaking girls who would tug my hair and call me names in a language I didn’t speak, there were spit balls, feet protruding in the walkways between the desks so I would trip, and lewd noises anytime I had to give a class presentation. Lonely and rejected I relegated myself to my room during the week, burying myself in my studies, and on the weekends I would beg my mother to drive me the two hours to White Pines Ranch (located in Oregon, Illinois) were my horse was and where I could go, be me, ride, and be totally free.
Photo retrieved from Pinterest.com You are probably asking “Why is she telling us this? What does this have to do with guns or the 2nd Amendment, or anything this blog is supposed to be about?” I am telling you this because things could have gone differently for me, my life could have taken a dark turn towards either violence or self-inflicted pain. Luckily I had a mother who did all that she could to diminish my despair by driving me two hours each way on Friday nights and coming to pick me back up on Sunday afternoons. Luckily I had a horse named Roper who seized my hopelessness and with his gentle spirit and turned it joy, love, and a purpose. Luckily I grew up in a time where there most popular video game was Super Mario Brothers and young men and women were not placing themselves into Mario or Luigi’s shoes and trying to pounce turtles or break bricks with their heads; it was a very different time than the first-person shooter games of today. No, I am not about to call out first-person shooter games or claim that video games and violent movies are responsible for mass shootings, nor am I going to blame it on guns or the firearms industry in general, I am going to do something far more provocative than that, I am going to call out parents who are so completely disengaged as care-givers that they cannot see their children suffering and slipping into anguish, I am going to call out the school teachers and administrators who turn their backs when the quite kid, the nerd, the fat kid, or the poor kid are needlessly attacked by their peers, and I am going to call out all of the bullies out there who work so very hard at making sure those who are “less than” know just how worthless they are.
Image retrieved from: Idea Expo - WordPress Now as a trained sociologist (that is what my master’s degree is in) I could drone on for an entire book relating the theories of Durkheim, Marx, and Merton, that do indeed come into play, to the horrific acts of mass shootings, but maybe that is for another day. What I really want to point out is that it is really a few of agents of socialization that truly determine a huge part of what makes a mass-shooter. First let’s talk about the family. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, alienation all starts at home where two working career-focused parents spend more time with their jobs than with their children. I am NOT saying working parents can’t be good parents, my mom was a single working mom and I turned out just fine, but when you have individuals who farm out the care and raising of their children to others beginning at a very young age and then allow those children to spend what little time they do have with them playing on the computer, cell phone, whatever, you end up with children who lack basic socialization and parents who are totally disengaged from the act of actually parenting. Children are left alone for hours every day to entertain themselves in whatever way they can find. Many find that entertainment in video games which allow them to leave their reality (which can sometimes be very harsh and lonely) and escape to a world where they are powerful, heroic, and respected – whether by the gun or by the sword – these young people find their pride and courage in a game console.
Image retrieved from: scienceblogs.com On to the education system – ugh – don’t even get me started! The education system in this country is broken and teachers are getting worse with each batch. Discipline has been taken out of the school and, in an attempt to thwart bullying; schools have only encouraged students to take to things like social media to bully their peers. Teacher’s hands are tied when it comes to enforcing any type of social order in the classroom. Every student is “empowered” to question authority and they openly debate their teachers and question disciplinary decisions. At this point it is easier for teachers to just sit back and allow chaos to run amok less they be the victim of a classroom revolution or worse, and administrative reprimand. Teachers who are brave enough to correct inappropriate behaviors are often disciplined themselves by administration after an angry parent comes and raises a stink about the “inappropriate way” their child was punished (usually something as simple as a trip to the principle or at worst in-school suspension). Without the support of the administration the teachers don’t have a leg to stand on and bullies are allowed to continue their naughty behaviors and exclude many of their peers from engagement opportunities. Many young people, especially young men, are then left out in the cold – angry and alienated they go home to an empty house and take out their frustration by being a hero – whether wizard or warrior – earning the respect they can’t get at school by force.
Image retrieved from: WikiHow.com
There are, of course, other things that come into play when a young person moves from social outlier to active shooter. There are many other social, psychological, and ideological factors that are of consequence when a young mind turns to gun violence. Many of these young men were seeking to end their pain and make others pay for the “injustices” they may have suffered at the hands and mouths of their peers. They do so in a way that seems most effective and accessible to them – gun violence – because in their FANTASY life the respect comes from fear and the consequences for their outbursts are limited to an image on a screen.
Please know that I am NOT saying these young shooters are not culpable for their crimes! I too was an outcast, ostracized and excluded, yet I never became a mass shooter or hurt anybody but myself. In my mind, the people who commit these crimes are to be punished to the greatest extent of the law! But I do understand that these young people are being brought up in a world they believe is supposed to be fair, they feel entitled to justice and will bring it to reality through the fantasy in which they immerse themselves. The point of this article was not make excuses for mass shooters or try to explain away the pain of the families of their victims with stories of the shooters own victimization, it was meant to show that gun violence can be avoided through attention and action. We need to pay attention to our young people and the choices they are making. Just because it is common belief that teenagers hate their parents and want nothing to do with them, that does not give parent the permission to shirk their duties, if anything it should motivate parents to be respectfully intrusive and justly disciplinary. If we see something in a young person that seems to point towards violent behavior we need to take the necessary steps to redirect that behavior. The video games are not to blame, the guns are not to blame, we must look to ourselves as parents, educators, and mentors and determine if we are truly working to make the lives of our young people positive, productive, and constructive.
Please know that I am NOT saying these young shooters are not culpable for their crimes! I too was an outcast, ostracized and excluded, yet I never became a mass shooter or hurt anybody but myself. In my mind, the people who commit these crimes are to be punished to the greatest extent of the law! But I do understand that these young people are being brought up in a world they believe is supposed to be fair, they feel entitled to justice and will bring it to reality through the fantasy in which they immerse themselves. The point of this article was not make excuses for mass shooters or try to explain away the pain of the families of their victims with stories of the shooters own victimization, it was meant to show that gun violence can be avoided through attention and action. We need to pay attention to our young people and the choices they are making. Just because it is common belief that teenagers hate their parents and want nothing to do with them, that does not give parent the permission to shirk their duties, if anything it should motivate parents to be respectfully intrusive and justly disciplinary. If we see something in a young person that seems to point towards violent behavior we need to take the necessary steps to redirect that behavior. The video games are not to blame, the guns are not to blame, we must look to ourselves as parents, educators, and mentors and determine if we are truly working to make the lives of our young people positive, productive, and constructive.
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