Important topic. - Promoted by Specter

Although I don't normally watch the TV program, "Dr. Phil", today's program about the school shootings, especially the more recent ones in Cleveland and in Crandon, WI, sounded interesting, so I decided to tune in today's "Dr. Phil" program for the heck of it.

Among the guests on today's program were a criminal profiler/author and the authors of a couple of books about the supposed psychology of the shooters and so on. Now for the points of my essay:

The shooting that took place in a small town in Wisconsin called Crandon, where seven youngsters were having a slumber party was incredibly horrific, as were all the other school shootings. Six of the seven youngsters were killed, the other critically wounded.

As it turned out in this case, the shooter was not a teenager but a 20-year-old sheriff Deputy, who'd been dumped by his girlfriend. The Cleveland school shooter was a youngster in his mid-teens.

The Columbine, the Virginia Tech shootings and some other school shooting sprees were also mentioned and compared. One thing that was found to be a common denominator was this: All of the shooters had been bullied/humiliated in some way or other in school during the course of their lives. They were young white males who'd undergone changes in relationships, a fall in status, or had had major failures/setbacks at some points in their lives. While they acted and looked like average students, they ere often somewhat more withdrawn or high-strung than average students. The Virginia Tech shooter had constantly railed against "rich kids". Many, if not most of the shooters had told others about their plans to shoot up other people, i. e. classmates or teachers. Some had even written fictional stories about students gunning down teachers, classmates, etc.

The criminal profiler on the program, who was also an author, pointed out the decline of the "nuclear" family (i. e. Mother, father, sister and brother), the shooters' troubled pasts, and the constand pressures that kids in today's society are put under. At the end of the program, the following conclusion was reached: The violent culture of America is a contributing factor, and, yet, during the program, Dr. Phil kept asking the foillowing questions to parents, shooting survivors, a pastor, and even friends/loved ones of the shooting victims: Is there a way to spot a potential school shooter?
Are there warning signs? Is there a way to stop a school shooting before it starts?

From the random drive-by shootings that are an all-too frequent occurrence in many poor urban areas, to the school shootings, to family, friend and neighbor disputes that ultimately result in permanent maiming or murder due to the presence of guns, it seems that things are defintely out of control. That being said, I firmly believe that Dr. Phil and his guests on today's program seemed totally oblivious to and failed to address another big problem in our society and culture: Our society and culture has long been dependent upon and revolved around the gun, and what we're presently witnessing is the net result of this gun dependency.

Imho, there are far too many guns here in the United States, which has the highest murder rate by guns per capita in the Western world. For the past several decades, the omnipotent Gun Lobby and the NRA have affectively bullied lawmakers out of passing more effective gun laws and strengthen the ones we already have. This being said, the following questions must be asked:

A) Why is the number of firearms manufactured here in the United States every year not regulated?

B) Why are there not more extensive, thorough screenings of prospective gun buyers, background checks and waiting periods implemented?

C) Why do people with mental health issues, anger-management issues, or histories of drug/alcohol abuse and addictions continue to get access to firearms and why are such people not denied access when their name(s) come up on a gun dealer's computer screen?

I've come to the following conclusions, which were reinforced by watching today's episode of Dr. Phil:

I believe that there are many troubled kids and young adults out in our society and in the world at large who, for whatever reason, do end up falling through the cracks and don't get the necesary help that they need until a crisis erupts and than it's too late. I believe that, given the fact that there are many, many troubled kids/ young adults who've gone through a tumultous life ( i. e. bullying & humiliation, troubled homes, anger towards classmates, families or teachers, etc., who do not go out and maim/kill other people. It's not always possible to predict who will or will not engage in a heihous crime such as a school shooting, or whatever and maim/kill other people.

Another couple of examples of when people have not been able to spot whether or not a person(s) will commit a heinous crime such as a shooting, assault, etc., took place at one of Boston's toughest high schools, which was situated in a tough white workingclass sectioni of Boston roughtly 30 years ago. The controversy over mandated school busing in Boston was still at its height, and Boston was roiling with racial tensions and hostilities, that had arisen, at least in part, as a spin-off of mandated school busing.

One such example was a white student from that particular white workingclass neighborhood of Boston at that particular high school, who was involved in the horrific attack on an African-American attorney on his way to a meeting at Boston's City Hall. Due to serious injuries, the attorney had to be rushed to the hospital. This was particularly shocking to the teacher whoi'd had this particular white student in one of her classes, especially since he'd been a member of the high school's racially integrated basketball team and had never, ever shown the least bit of racial anger or animosity.

The other example was an African-American student who was a student at the same high school, who was at this particular high school under Federal District Judge W. Arthur Garrity's mandated school busing program. He'd also been in one of this particular teacher's classes and had never shown any signs whatsoever of racial anger or animosity. The African-American student had crouched down behind a car with a baseball bat near a convenience store in the neighborhood in which he resided. He'd smashed a baseball bat over the head of an unsuspecting white suburbanite who'd stopped in the convenience store to purchase some cigarettes, fracturing the white guy's skull.
The victim of the baseball bat attack died in a city hospital several hours later of his injuries.

In both of these instances, nobody, including the teacher who'd had both of them as students, had thought that either the white workingclass kid who'd attacked the African-American attorney on his way to Boston's City hall with the American flag, or the African-American student who'd bludgeoned an unsuspecting suburban white guy to death with a baseball bat, would partake of such acts.

However, going back to the school shootings and also the two antagonizers at this particular Boston high school many years ago, here are some other questions that must be sked, which Dr. Phil and his program guests faild to accress: Is there something about the kinds of environments that the perpetrators of these horrific acts have been raised up in, or, in our society in general that makes some people prone to committing these horrible acts?

Is there something lacking in their family upbringing that's also a contributing factor? What about a person's inner psychic/psychological make-up? Does the fact that there's so much inequality, racial/ethnic/socioeconomic/religious differences prejudice(s) in our society at large also contribute to these kinds of horrific events? Is it possible that, in the case of the school shooting sprees, the drive-by shootings, etc., in poor urban areas, as well as shootings that result from disputes among people who know each other, the presence of too many guns here in America contributes heavily to this situation?

These are important questions that were sorely lacking in today's program, especially the issue that there are too many guns here in the United States of America. However, I've also reached my own conclusion: the firm belief that all of the above-mentioned factors together have contributed to and lead to the creation of this volatile situation.