Update on the Uvalde killer.

[Baitball Blogger]

Now they're saying he went to the fourth grade in room 111 and that he was bullied that year. He didn't receive special attention even though he was having difficulties.

I know this is going to get a lot of heated arguments as to whether this is relevant, but I think that good foundations for children are important, which is why I dread what is going to happen to school children in Florida who are going to have to deal with the abuse from autocratic school programs, and now ex-military personnel who do not have teaching degrees.

We are going in the wrong direction in this State.

[Raine]

1. I agree I don't see how anything will ever improve until there is a zero tolerance

for bullying. It seems that bullying is always at the heart of these shootings.

[Archae]

2. Being bullied is no excuse.

I was bullied all my school years, since I was a "bookworm."

I never had the desire or resources to do a school shooting.

And when i was in school, kids brought hunting rifles to school in deer seasons!

No, this Uvalde killer should have been pointed out as soon as possible.

I just read this from WBAY in Green Bay.

https://www.wbay.com/2022/07/17/officer-tackles-suspect-thwarts-possible-mass-shooting-mall/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. "a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other." ...

Herrera was wearing a shirt with the Punisher logo and a leather mask with spikes. He was carrying a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other.

[Danmel]

4. I was bullied relentlessly

I had orthopedic issues and was very petite. This was in the 60s and 70s when iif you were picked on, it was your fault.
I didn't get a gun.

[LenaBaby61]

8. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[Javaman]

25. Exactly right

I was bullied relentlessly from first grade until I graduated from high school.

Never once did I ever consider “going out ina blaze of glory”, I just wanted to be left alone and have a single day of peace.

[Danmel]

26. Same.

I didn't want to be friends with these aholes. I just wanted to graduate acd move on with my life.

[2naSalit]

33. Yup.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Being bullied is no excuse for shooting up a classroom. Hurt people hurt people. Both of these

things are true, and it's clear to me that kids who shoot up schools are deeply failed by their families and communities.

[Doc Sportello]

19. Well said n/t

[babylonsister]

6. Seriously, bullied in 4th grade?

Not even worth contemplating in the scheme of things imo.

[LenaBaby61]

9. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[W_HAMILTON]

7. He was how old? 18?

So, this alleged bullying happened around a decade ago. In that time, there would have been new teachers and new students. How does killing people that are years removed and had absolutely nothing to do with his alleged bullying have anything to do with his abhorrent actions?

If this was from the press conference earlier today, it seems as though Republicans are just trying to find anything and everything to blame outside of the fact that he was able to easily acquire a killing machine. I heard them also talking about how he played """violent""" video games. People around the world are bullied. People around the world play """violent""" video games. People around the world have issues with mental health. And yet no other country has these problems that we do with gun violence because in those countries, people are not as easily able to acquire guns. Period. End of discussion.

[Whiskeytide]

10. Millions of kids are bullied in school. It's a sad ...

… state of affairs, but it’s true. Most of them don’t resort to blowing children apart to vent their frustration over it.

But perhaps it’s a chicken or egg riddle. Did the Uvalde shooter resort to mass killing because he was bullied, or was he bullied because he demonstrated the signs of a dysfunctional personality already predisposed to committing such an act? I can easily see other students (of all ages) picking on the “weird” kid, never even beginning to understand that this kid’s weirdness might turn lethal.

Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Maybe the dysfunction that pre-existed was exacerbated by the bullying. It needs to be studied. Resources need to be directed toward this issue.

But in the meantime, policy has to be put in place to make it harder for a kid like this - who pasted red flags all over the internet - to get access to these weapons.

[Mariana]

11. Source? Who is "they"?

[Baitball Blogger]

18. ABC News tonight.

[captain queeg]

12. Oh it's the video games

Anything other than a gun loving society with access to military grade weapons. I grew up around guns and liked to go shooting. But even though most any gun can kill someone it wasn’t sort of worshipped back then. If anything those of us who hunted were looked at askance. Look at old cop movies, every one had a revolver. I can remember when the TV show Ateam came out and how it quickly became a showcase for ever increasing firepower. Back then no one had a semi automatic with an high capacity magazine. I don’t know if it was a coordinated effort by media and gun makers but soon guns were stars. I can’t remember exactly when high capacity mags were legalized but soon lots of guys were itching to get assault weapons and high capacity pistols. Advertising played a big role and the gun manufacurers made bank.

[ShazzieB]

38. Speaking of old cop novies...

When you mentioned old cop movies and guns being the stars, I knew just what you meant. My mind immediately went to Dirty Harry and his 44 magnum. I didn't see that movie, but I know damned well who/what the star was. The clips they showed in the TV ads made that quite clear, and they also made it clear that this was a movie I was not going to spend my money on.

[Grown2Hate]

39. I mean, the video games only reflect the popular

culture. Blaming those instead of the ACTUAL CULTURE is misguided at BEST. Agreed!

[elleng]

13. Of COURSE it's relevant.

'he was bullied that year. He didn't receive special attention even though he was having difficulties.'

[Jilly_in_VA]

14. I was bullied a few times myself

so the hell what? Not too long ago I went looking online for a guy I had some affection for because he called off some other boys who had me cornered (I don't even remember why, I think it had something to do with the fact that they didn't like that I could run faster than they could). Bucky hadn't graduated with our class and the last times I saw him he was driving a city bus in our home town. He had pretty brown eyes and a lot of the girls in our elementary school thought he was handsome. I just thought he was nice because of that incident. Anyway, when I went looking for him I learned that he had died several years back and that made me sad.

[XanaDUer2]

23. That's sad

I'm sorry

[Jilly_in_VA]

28. It's okay

I survived it, I'm fine, and I didn't shoot anyone. And Bucky seems to have made out okay, from what I could tell from the tracings of his life. I remember him fondly, which is all I can do.

I'm doing much better than a few people I knew. There was one girl in my HS class who wrote a really nasty post to the 40th reunion newsletter about some rumor someone had started about her. Nobody even knew what she was talking about, but she was obviously still stewing about it 40 years later. I mean, it was a real "fcuk all of you" kind of post and we were all like "Huh?" It was a class of 482 and there were a couple hundred people at the reunion from all different groups in the class, many of whom knew this girl, and nobody could figure it out.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

15. No way to make excuses for the shooter

But I read the entire 77 page report, and there was an extensive section about the killer. This was not just about being bullied in 4th grade, this was someone who was failed by “the system” his entire life.

Pretty much abandoned by his father, mother with addiction issues, speech impediment, bullying throughout school years because of speech, clothing, appearance, and poverty.

Evidence of him searching on line to see if he was a sociopath, looking up information on dyslexia, only one real friend who has moved away.

Again, I’m not making excuses for his inexcusable actions. But his entire life was a cry for help that was either unheard or heard but unanswered.

[Baitball Blogger]

17. Thank you.

[FailureToCommunicate]

21. Sure. But there are zillions of kids like that. But, they...

ARE NOT ABLE TO EASILY GET A GUN!! There are kids like that all over the world…
BUT THEY DON’T have easy access to guns!

Hint: it’s the gun, not the circumstances.

[momta]

30. THIS.

Shit like this happens. Yes, as a society we should fucking deal with it. We need treatment for addiction, we need access to abortion and prenatal care, we need universal healthcare, we need living wages...all kinds of stuff.

But mostly we need for angry young teenagers to not have access to guns!

[Sneederbunk]

16. Oh, and BTW, he bought and used an AR-15 style rifle.

[Baked Potato]

20. I love your OPs and I say this very respectfully,

please don’t blanket disparage ex-military who may happen to be teachers or go into teaching. The ex-military pieces of shit who get all the attention are the exception, not the rule.

They are the fuck ups in general who use the military as a crutch to give themselves legitimacy and who’s bad behavior gets amplified by the media.

I will say this with sincerity, please don’t worry about ex-military teaching. Remember there are gay and lesbian and perhaps Democratic ex-military who may find their calling in teaching.

And, was the obviously troubled shooter perhaps failed by his many non ex-military teachers?

[Baitball Blogger]

29. How the ex-military handles the teacher shortage is yet to be seen.

But, living in Florida I have seen how ex-officers have trashed their fiduciary responsibility to homeowners in order to follow a mission that puts homeowners on the back burner, while their loyalty is to institutions that are undermining everyone's rights. It is a backwater structure where they expect their titles to make them immune to criticism. "In the military, no one questions my word."

I concede that there will be wonderful teachers among many of those who take up the call to teach. I'm just concerned about those who would use the same military authoritative style to control students in their classroom. That is going to be a disaster.

[Evolve Dammit]

22. Everyone has been bullied at some point. No excuse. Murder 1.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

27. What?

I’ve followed this extensively, and have never heard or read anything like what you’re talking about.

[druidity33]

32. Different shooting. Different shooter. Another day in America. nt.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

37. The discussion we're in

in about the Uvalde shooter, so why are you making a snarky post that’s about the Highland shooter?

[JI7]

31. He was an incel and HE bullied the girls that worked at Wendys

or whatever that fast food place he worked at.

Being bullied doesn't result in going to a school with young kids and shooting them.

[MarcA]

34. If Abuse is allowed to continue then bad things happen.

Murder, mass shootings, suicides, drug addiction, alcoholism, child abuse. Saying that everyone got bullied and didn't shoot up a school is just an excuse to let the bad to keep happening.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

41. Exactly

It’s possible to say that he shouldn’t have been able to buy an AR-15 AND say that he was failed by the system.

[ShazzieB]

44. Thanks for this.

I agree. Yes, I KNOW being bullied is NOT an excuse for killing even one person, but bullying does incredible damage, and it comes out in all sorts of different ways.

I was bullied off and on for years. The schools never gave a shit. Is that okay because I never shot up a classroom in response? Hell, no.

[keithbvadu2]

35. I fear the ex-military far less than the 'religious' right wingers who want to rule/indoctrinate r

I fear the ex-military far less than the 'religious' right wingers who want to rule/indoctrinate rather than teach/lead/govern.

[Rebl2]

45. Same

[Joinfortmill]

40. I hear you

[hadEnuf]

42. So he took revenge on kids that hadn't even been born when he was enduring his bullying?

The NRA put a gun into the hands of a maniac.

[Baitball Blogger]

43. Arrested Development?

That classroom had personal meaning to him. He must not have seen those young students for the innocents they were.

[NullTuples]

46. Meanwhile two state AG's are suing & a judge has halted the Biden Admin's anti-bullying guidelines

[mvd]

47. I had a couple bully sessions in school

One was in middle school - someone who badly emotionally bullied me and got others to also do it. Solved it by changing schools.

The other was unbelievably in my senior year of high school. Just a goofball who thought it was funny to hit me to get my attention and generally annoy me. I told the principal and things were solved. Catholic schools do not tolerate such stuff.

Shooting is never the answer. Though we do have a gun crisis and mental health crisis in this country.

[captain queeg]

48. I had a pleasant experience with a high school bully

He was a couple years older than which made a big difference at that age. I ran into him in a tavern when I was 21, By that time I was much bigger and pretty strong from my job. He did a double take and then e was so nice, Bought me a beer. Just seeing how uncomfortable he was made my day

[Scrivener7]

49. Ahh. The great American pastime of blaming ANYTHING but the guns.

[Baitball Blogger]

50. Multi-task. Multi-task.

There's a lot of blame to go around. Match, dry wood and the arsonist. It's the combination of the three that creates the problem. So, hide the matches, but also determine what happened to the person who has the desire to burn everything down.

[Scrivener7]

51. It's the guns. And the fetishization of guns.

[Baitball Blogger]

52. Don't disagree. The fire is to an arsonist,

as guns are to the hard right.

But, the answer is still, multi-faceted.

[Scrivener7]

53. Nope. Just the guns. And the fetishization of guns. We are the only country

where this happens. All those other "facets" exist everywhere else too.

It's the guns.