Shooting at VA Tech

[Angelalex242]

My objection to that is:

1, 2, and 4 all happened to me growing up.

I never shot anybody.

By process of elimination, number 3 is the key. People can go through 1, 2, and 4 and turn out to be healthy adults later in life. I've done it myself.

But 3 is another matter.

[Werefrog]

Right. However, not all mental illnesses are created equally. Also, even the most severe mental illnesses aren't as debilitating as they once were. Rather than mental illness being the one cause, it's interacting with all the other causes that were listed. As I said, causality is multi-faceted.

Here are some ways that schools could help:

1) Provide better psychological sevice in schools: Not nearly as big of a deal in most colleges. However, schools are still woefully short on school psychs.

2) Create a more supportive environment. Yes, you might have been able to survive the things that "broke" the shooters. However, a supportive environment can do a world of good for someone with a mental illness. In fact, the humanistic views of treatment believe that a supportive environment.

3) This one connects with number two, but I feel that it's important enough to put as its own point. Teachers should not show favoritism. Punish the popular kids when they call an awkward kid a sexual slur. There are too many times when teachers take the attitude, "Kids will be kids." I substitute teach sometimes when I'm home on vacation. If I hear a kid say that, I will at least call it to his (or her) attention. If I hear it again, I come up with some sort of punishment. There's no excuse for a teacher letting a student treat a kid that way.

Again, I'm just trying to come up with viable ways of preventing something like this from happening again. Also, I'm very passionate about this subject as my dad is a teacher and my mom is a social worker, and I've been brought up to think about these issues in complicated (yet practical 8) as I believe I have shown in providing possible solutions) ways.

[phyco126]

My objection to that is:

1, 2, and 4 all happened to me growing up.

I never shot anybody.

By process of elimination, number 3 is the key. People can go through 1, 2, and 4 and turn out to be healthy adults later in life. I've done it myself.

But 3 is another matter.

But again, we don't know how bad the columbine kids of the VA Tech student where teased and messed with. Some just get teased, and they are able to shrug it off and think "If I can do it, you can do it to." I'm not saying or implying you where that person, but I am saying we don't know how baddly he was mistreated.

If you hit a dog enough times, what will happen? Two things, it will either become anti-social and shy, or it will become anti-human and try to rip your throat out.

Werefrog, you are right about the system, but I still believe it is the people's fault, as they are the ones that instigate the system to begin with. It's not like the system came to Earth and made people it's slave to it's will. Well, maybe they are slaves to it's will, but all humans have the ability to break the cycle of the system, but they don't. If they try, then they too become victims of the very system they once supported, and in turn can go insane.

Also, people can develope very nasty mental illnesses as a result of years of neglect/abuse. A child that grows up with a normal mind suddenly is abused and teased may turn out to be the next freaking Hitler.

[ilovemyguitar]

Okay, first of all, EVERYBODY got teased in school. It's not like just a few unlucky people get it and everybody else traipses through school untouched. Being a teenager is hell on pretty much everyone.

Second, as has been mentioned already, the presence of a support system is important for any person's mental well-being. This can come from the parents, friends at school, wherever. So if this guy's actions are the fault of the kids he went to school with for not being friendly enough, it's also the fault of his parents for not being supportive enough, and for all the random people he ever met for not deciding to try to be friends with him.

Third, he wasn't even in high school anymore. This incident was at a college. I don't know what your experience is/was, but the social structure at most colleges is drastically different from a typical American high school.

Thousands of people have had lives as bad as his or worse, but they don't take a gun and start shooting people. You can blame society, blame the people around him, blame whoever you want, but at the end of the day HE is the person who did it. To say that the people he killed somehow brought it on themselves is both flawed and inappropriate.

[phyco126]

I NEVER said that the people he shot deserved it, I also blatanly said in this case, students and teachers alike actually tried to reach out to him, to help him. However, he was already far too gone.

Parents do have some role in it, but what happens when those parents, such as in this case, are too busy trying to work for money to give their kids a better life? And it's a stigma to get your children help when they need it? "OMG you worked how hard and long to give your kids a better life? Well, I hate to say it, but I hate you, you are to blame, I'm going to sue the living -Fatal Hopper- out of you until you are the one lying in the streets with 50 bullets in your chest." That doesn't seem right, does it?

Of course everyone gets teased at somepoint in their life, even adults are teased and harrased at times. However, some are teased far worse than others and are unable to handle it and are pushed over the edge.

Yes, he did it, bad man bad. Now if you excuse me I'm gonna go -Fatal Hopper- with some kids at the high school until they shoot someone, then I'm gonna say "Oh knoes! They went nutz, but it's their fault! They had no self control! lolololololz" then move on to the next high school. I mean hey, why not? Obviously it's not my fault, I'm not the one who pulled the trigger, I was just having some fun.

[Kizyr]

Ok, I've waited for a bit so my reply could have some more coherence. Anyway...

Manipulation of the truth, the ability to directly lie to another human being, the ability to be steady under something so telling as a lie detector is how. Granted, most psychologists don't pick up on these sorts of things, but in a news post I'd read said he did go and talk to a professional psychiatrist. If this is true or not, of course, is based off of what I read. I do however know that many psychiatrists can pick up on certain behaviors, because they themselves are just as screwed up. Of course it could just be the two that I know.

I'm also simply basing my assumptions off of what I've read and what I know of people who are disturbed. I spent a bit hanging around people of the same MO, and while they've not killed anyone, they've been on that verge and tossed into prison/institutions.

You still make baseless assumptions. You weren't there, it's simple as that; so whether or not your experience is applicable is something you're not in a position to know (although, just hanging around people who are disturbed is limited experience, when the people you're blaming includes professionals and people who had direct contact with the perpetrator). Furthermore, to step up and make the claim that psychiatrists or therapists who were in contact with him should've seen this coming is not only incredibly short-sighted, but completely baseless given that you're going off of very limited information.

I repeat, it's easy to point fingers and place blame on others, and say that they should've seen this coming, when we have the benefit of hindsight.

What I'm saying, and what I continue to say, is that, unless someone was at VA Tech, and they have some kind of connection to the people involved that goes beyond any of us, then they have no right to be making claims like this. I'm getting irritated at all these armchair analyses going on in general, not just around here.

I would agree and disagree. I mean, yeah people do not govern anothers actions, but they di have an affect on the mental stability of others. If you contsantly make fun of people (I mean people in school, like a lot of people to one person) and that person is emotionally unstable, they will snap. While they 'didn't' do it, but they sure the hell jumped it along. I do not think those people might have had naything to do with it, but people and possible victims can have something to do with it.

There's a certain degree of control someone has over his actions. Even someone who is mentally disturbed will retain a certain degree of control--the question is if it's enough control to refrain from doing certain things. It's why, say, pleading insanity to a crime only has a limited effect--if you're trying to get off a murder charge by claiming you have kleptomania then it's inapplicable, for example.

Now... picking on someone at school, bullying, teasing, etc. Yes, that's wrong--it's wrong because it makes other people feel bad, and it's emotional/physical harm on someone else for your own benefit. But, beyond that, things like retribution or revenge, that's the other person's doing.

However, it's important to realize that mental illness is not cut off from every other aspect of someone's life. Various environmental factors can either help someone, or it can hurt someone. Remember, one of the first rules of psychology is that causality is almost always multi-faceted.

Pretty much what he said right here... That's what I'm getting at. KF