stabbing in Pennsylvania high school
WTF is wrong with some people?
Many people just want attention/affirmation. They do some pretty weird things to get it. This, of course, is ultra-destructive and harmful; it is also depressingly common. Obviously, this kid will suddenly get all kinds of attention, and knew it.
A month ago I went to the local hospital to see if a 16-year-old cousin of a person in our church was still there following a suicide attempt. She wasn't, but while I was there I ran into that person in the church--the 14-year-old sister of the first cousin had seen the attention her sister received and tried the same thing two days later. They both wound up ok, but that was the point anyway.
As someone who works with adolescents, the use of attempted suicide for attention/reaching out/whatever you want to call it is a very real issue and a very scary issue.
It tragic that many kids feel that taking their life is the best option
It is and I certainly don't want to discount actual "successful" suicides. I was talking suicide attempts that are more of a call for help. My limited experience is that these attempts are carried out in a manner not so much to try to commit suicide, but to start a suicidal act.
I know this is making little sense - example: a young girl taking pills and immediately telling a friend of her actions.
I don't know how different these issues are, but the cry-for-help attempts, to me, are especially frustrating and scary. I have been lucky not to be very close to a realized suicide attempt, though, and maybe that's why I have a big difference in my mind.
I don't know what I'm arguing, just spitting out thoughts about a shitty thing.
yeah its sick. even just 1-2 generations ago, the truly sick or troubled would just kill themselves or simply fade away without harming anyone else in most cases (if they didnt pull it together and live the best life they could no matter how shitty). ask a WWII vet from the greatest generation (while theyre still around) what they think of todays culture and the general attitude and behavior of last few generations of youth....they will reply theyre disgusted and ashamed and sometimes befuddled by random chaos. it mightve really started with manson and those freaks and just kept mutating as the next insane episode in line receives more coverage/talk...psychotic or disenfranchised or bullied or depressed people now turn into 100% terrorists. instead of either soldering on or just killing themselves they decide to go out with a bang "so everyone knows"....its pathetic and im embarrassed to be 30 yrs old in generational bracket with so many weak americans who turn to terrorism when life shits on them
You're completely wrong, and so are the folks from the Greatest Generation who think that.
The only difference is the media. The things happening today STILL HAPPENED, just with far less media coverage because it didn't exist.
so many weak americans who turn to terrorism when life shits on themHow many, exactly? Get over yourself.
So you are saying that school shootings/killings/attacks were as common 40-50 years ago as they are today? Honest question, not trying to start an argument. I understand that cable TV, the Internet, etc. have made the news media readily available to everyone, but it seems that you cant go a month anymore without having a different school in the news headlines (or mall shooting, cinema shooting, etc.). I'm only 27, so I don't know, but I have a hard time believing that this kind of behavior was as common 50 years ago as it is today.
And it's becoming more and more obvious that our parents and grandparents are both massively misinformed about statistics and frequency of events and even just the nature of the times in which they lived AND they romanticize those times like crazy.
Yes, school incidents were just as common 40-50 years ago per capita. Mass shootings perhaps weren't as common for a number of reasons, but Grandpa Cletus is wrong in almost every way when he says the '50s were the "good old days."
http://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings/history-school-shootings-u…
It was just as common in the past as it is now.
Also when people reminice about the 50s I don't blame them at all. They still had bad people and killers, but nobody was worried about it. You just didn't have the paranoia we have today about everything.
I'm bringing it up mostly because it occurred in Bath Township near Lansing (link).
and who was that one guy who committed suicide and didn't take his insanity out on other people named? You know, the ones who sent the "greatest" generation to war in the first place?
Today is a dark and dreadful day. First Lacey, then the Ultimate Warrior, and now this. I'm going to pray extra hard and give my kids extra hugs and kisses tonight.
This is an insane story, especially given the fact that stabbings are obviously much more personal and tend to have a much more pronounced psychological component to them.
I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone that crime has ever been lower in the world or in the US. The rates of murder and violent crime dropped off a cliff the last few decades and are still falling. Don't mistake increased coverage of a smaller number of atrocities for an increase in atrocities.
The rate of disease, hunger, infant mortality, and a host of other problems is also continuing to plummet after having done so for decades. The expansion of civil rights to more and more people also continues unabated.
I don't mean to diminish the legitimate problems that remain, but it seems important to correct the prevalent notion that society is going to hell, when actually, it's never been better.
Rational people understand that. It's the morons that try and change everyones opinions using emotion and not facts these days that are annoying.
Just curious, but what are your sources for the crime rate stats?
I'm mostly relying on Steven Pinker's Better Angels of our Nature, which I consider one of the finest books ever written. It's been argued in many places though; it's not a controversial point of view in the academic community.
I'll have to check that out. Also did a quick search of the interwebs and found this:
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#nat19…
Not sure where they get their data from, but it does look like a pretty steady drop since the mid-90's or so.
Just a point on having an armed guard in a school.
Take Huron for example. Huron is a large, two-story school that has an armed guard (or used to, I think he was cut for budgetary reasons).
If someone pulls a gun in the second floor while the security guard is on the first, there's simply nothing that the security guard is going to be able to do to prevent loss of life if that's the offender's goal.
People seem to overlook this logistical fact.
Sure, AA's high schools are huge and not totally representative, but the idea is the same. If you have a security guard it doesn't at all mean that crazy people will not do crazy things.
then hire more guards...
If the relatively affluent neighborhoods of Ann Arbor cannot afford 3 security guards in their 3 high schools, how are more public schools going to hire more guards?
That totally misses the point.
I would like to see some statistics on the size of the schools that these events happen in, though. Excepting Sandy Hook, these tragedies seem to occur at large high schools. I know part of the fight against this is creating welcoming, accepting environments so that young adults don't see this as a necessary route of action. That might be something that is simply harder to do in a large school.
Ann Arbor is affluent, but the school district finances are a steaming, hot mess. There are lots of "normal" things they can't afford. Proper bussing and busses, just for starters. I suspect a lot of A2's budget issues relative to the wealth of the community are kind of unique.
Well, this can quickly get into politics, so I wanna be careful.
I would say that Ann Arbor's school budgetary problems are representative of the state of Michigan right now. Many schools have long since cut bussing and transportation. Busses are no longer an assumed service in public education in Michigan, unfortunately.
April 10th, 2014 at 12:37 AM ^
It might not stop everything, but it could theoretically limit the damage.
Remember that many of these awful events actually take a long time to unfold. It is rarely a two-minutes-and-its-over situation. I believe the shooter at VT was active and mobile in the building for nearly an hour, if I remember my facts correctly. I think the Columbine issue was similar.
Situations vary. We are fortunate that we have not had an Anders Brevik situation here, where an egotistical sicko (who will have decades of life after his release from prison!) had free reign for as long as he wanted to murder people. An armed guard could, theoretically, be in position to intervene in any situation in less than five minutes, even at a sprawling place like Pioneer. That wouldn't save everyone, but it could well limit the tragedy.
There are also arguments to be made that having armed guards present are a deterrent; it certainly seems like a lot of these shootings happen at places where the victims are known to be defenseless.
For those of you familiar with Spilly's cullinary escapades on SBNation, he mentioned on twitter this morning that this was the high school he went to. Thoughts and prayers to all involved.
Have you noticed a lot of buildings putting up "no gun" signs since they started conceal/carry in Chicago? My building sent out an email the other day saying our building is officially gun free. I don't own a gun, so it doesn't really matter to me either way, but I was just curious.
The little 'slash/gun' symbols are erupting like mushrooms here this Spring. Equally interesting though are those establishments that are posting communications they are unwilling to comply with the un-Constitutional, temporary 'regulations.' Such places are where I steer folks to patronize. And now I can only take clients to BYOB establishments - I tell them why and also my reasons why the temporary condition will not persist. The overseas guys almost invariably are onboard with where this logically is headed. So ...
Ridiculous in my opinion.