There have been way too many school shootings from 1999-2023, and it's only getting worse. It feels like everyday another happens.. It's been on the news so much as well and its an awful example, a 6 year old shot his teacher and I believe that it was influenced by all this awful stuff.. What do you all think about this kind of stuff?

I think it's way to easy for anyone to get a gun in the country, especially ones you would find in a war zone. They have been over-popularized by the gun industry, and politicians, for the past several decades, who market them like toys, and collectibles, with the regulations over them reflecting that. And instead of having a meaningful conversation, or action, over them, it often ends in ideological disagreements, and with a lot of worthless praying to god in hopes of ending these shootings. And you know something is wrong when you have many promoting the growth of a police state, or suspending a Constitutional right to due process, rather than offend a small minority of activists who are way to obsessed over everything guns.

Things sadly have changed over time. from some of the violent video game children play to at time mental health issues that screw with people's minds. Heck the covid19 pandemic for example really messed with people's psychological states due to the forced lockdowns that caused people who are normally supposed to be very social to isolate for 'safety' reasons.

Let's see

Blame video games: check

Blame kids: check

Blame mental health: check

Blame covid lockdowns: check

Blame guns: no

You might as well blame NewGrounds for it to, while you are at it, and then demand govermnet to go after us.

On this website I don’t recall seeing someone attribute video games for school shootings, so to catch it here is a bit surprising.

I think the demographics/generation groups who use this site have grew up with video games so don’t feel affected by it. How long have you considered that video games can influence school shootings?

Good thing we have statistics on that.

While correlation doesn't prove causation, lack of correlation certainly disproves causation.

Back in the 90's, blaming video games for kids behavior was in vogue. Infamous attorney, anti-game activist, Jack Thompson (now disbarred) made a career out of it, and some cases involving kids used the "video games made them do it" defense to get them out of trouble, while Congress held hearings over it which led the game industry to start using the ERSB rating system. But, for all of this, there was never any study that supported the idea that video games made kids any more violent. But, parents, conservatives, religious folk, didn't really care, and already had a prior history of blaming cartoons, and D&D, before that (Hell, even Pokemon was considered evil, and making kids go astray, back then), so, for many of them, they naturally saw video games as a problem in society.

I had to look up this graph (here’s 2000 one). It’s bugging me that I don’t understand what it shows - how the data are collected and what it’s counting as a “violent crime”.

I still don’t get why violent crime would drop to 25% of the original value over a decade.

videogames are not linked to mass shootings

This article tries to answer that, but it basically concludes that there is no real answer to why it drastically dropped. It does point out several possible factors that could have reduced it, but not a single one that contributed the most to it.

Personally, I think it has a lot to do with our tough on crime approach in the country around the same time, which led to a drastic rise in our incarceration rate (the biggest in the world).

Regression to the mean can do weird things at times.

It sucks but shit happens. Some people shouldnt be allowed to give birth. Theres to many people and not enough precautions.

Look at these lists and if you're anything like me, your eyes will widen and your mouth will go agape.

USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(2000%E2%80%93present)

vs

Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:School_shootings_in_Europe

ever since they started cosplaying as a nurse.

Why did we end online classes after covid? Just keep classes online again.

Because they suck. I'm a teacher. I know this.

I may be late to this conversation but I thought I'd put in my two cents.

My son is in 4th grade and he told me they had a drill for active shooters and he seemed a bit confused by the whole situation as he thinks its "weird" and "scary" to conduct drills. I quote because those are the words he used. And it is a very weird and scary situation to be in and definitely uncomfortable especially when I remember going to elementary school in the 90s and I had fire drills and earthquake drills and that was it. If we heard there was a police situation outside the school or there was a incident we simply locked down but we just stayed in class and played games until it was over.

Fast-forward to my first assignment when I joined the Airforce and I am in my 20s and having to, as a cop, run active shooter drills. Let me lay it down for you. You get a message over the radio of an active shooter at the school. You need to respond along with all patrols around the area to the school immediately. Like drop whatever you are doing and go. Once you arrive on scene, regardless of if any other patrolmen are around, you need to make entry. Listen for gunshots. If you see injured you can not help. If you see victims you tell them to exit where you entered and you ask what the shooter looks like, how many, and/or where they were last seen, but dont stop listening for the gunshots. Once you are getting closer you are with m4 in hand and clearing corridors until you finally hear another shot or screams and then you immediately rush and shoot the target.

In all my life I never expected to have to train for that as the thought never crossed my mind. But we did and we did it often. Once a month we conducted active shooter drills, in a foreign country, that didn't allow for guns except for a single loaded hunting rifle, because we were going to be using it once we got back to the states. That feeling of going home and having to realize it made it all the worse.

When I finally got back to the states I remembered that everyone is armed. Id see dudes at the 711 with pistol on hip. Going into the grocery store and see a guy slinging an Armalite. Like yall dont need to carrying if you didnt fear your fellow America. But you do because to everyone who walks around armed to the teeth they are afraid of the world around them and of their neighbors.

My family who came from Korea always spoke of community helping each other out in times of need and when someone was having a hard time you offered food or services. But in America once the craze of the 50s with McCarthyism we began to fear each other. Who belongs to what political group? Which side do you bat for? All of these became questions of ascertaining if the fellow you were talking to was going to be an echo chamber or someone who contradicted your ideas. I am not saying there's no communities helping out each other but you see 24/7 media and how political leaders speak and you begin to question to reality that is around you. But I think most people are afraid, uneducated, destitute or all of the above.

If you cant raise your child that you were forced to give birth to or had no access to healthcare, safe sex or sex education then you wont have the tools necessary to carry on a healthy relationship with your family or have a mentally and emotionally healthy one for yourself. Mental health is a cause yes but it is only heightened by the inability to access affordable care or risk putting yourself further into debt. If you give a women no option but to give birth and you didn't provide contraception to begin and then after the child is born and you aren't provided with childcare or you aren't paid enough to pay for childcare then what options are you left with? You no longer have a sense of community and thus will not trust your neighbors to care for your child you cant simply drop them off with a friend who also has to work two jobs to provide for their family.

Life is getting harder for Americans. Living is hard and making it harder puts a strain on peoples well being and their mental health. With no access to solve those issues then what are we all left to do? Also if I didnt make it enough of a point earlier guns is also a huuuuuuge issue.

Living in countries where guns were banned was the most peaceful thing ever. But more than just having no guns in America for those 2A folks there is no accountability. Like good god man. You can get a gun quicker and easier than you can get a license to drive. There are too many Americans not just with guns but not trained on them AT ALL. NILL. You give a person a gun who paid for it and did their mandatory 3 day wait period and then they get the gun... No training no safety lesson. Just get this gun and a box of ammo and I'm out of here. Where is the accountability other than a background check and permit for your weapon?

Well anyway that's my two cents. I know I could give more but I'd rather keep it tame. Guns are a weapon of death they are not intended for maiming or injuring. They are meant to kill. That is it.

OK, I can debunk both of these here and now. One: I play violent as fuck video games, and have I ever shot up a school? NO! I have terrible mental health, but I still haven’t shot up a school!

what do you mean by that? If you’re blaming the mother, it’s no their fault. The child could’ve easily been influenced by a lot of things.

Shitty edit of "Pumped Up Kicks - Foster The People" from the NG audio portal intensifies.

Your right, I watch Madness Combat and play games like CoD, CSGO, and Halo and I have never even thought of shooting a school

An opinion that's proven factually wrong whenever such a story surfaces.

If that mantra was handled like an equation, it would simplify down to “good guys stop bad guys”.

If some other guy shoots back, and then the police arrive to find a literal gun fight, how are they to find out which of them is the "good guy"?

Well it's not like I haven't said it before that the gun violence in general is a complex problem.

School shootings happen because parents aren't paying attention to their kids or are shitty to them behind closed doors. If they're gun owners then it's because they suck at keeping their guns secure like they should be.

Not sure how kids would get them otherwise unless they knew someone off the streets.

Think about this way:

1. If a kid grows up in a family with guns, but is raised well and has a good social circle and has their mental health taken care of, then they probably won't commit any shootings.
2. If a kid grows up in a family without guns, and is raised well and has a good social circle and their mental health is taken care of, then they probably won't commit any shootings.
3. If a kid grows up in a family with guns, but is abused/neglected and doesn't have any friends and has terrible unchecked mental health, there's a chance they might commit a shooting.
4. If a kid grows up in a family without guns, and is abused/neglected and doesn't have friends and has terrible unchecked mental health, they probably won't commit any shootings but might do something equally horrible.

Food for thought

School shootings? I am against them.

To be fair, I was raised in a family where guns were in fact in my household and had a lot of problems, and I have a mental illness that I'm trying to treat with professional help due to a complicated past.

There were problems in that background but I didn't start questioning a lot of the things that were going on behind closed doors on my end until college... same with some of the friendships I had over the years.

If I stopped treatment, I could do something horrible. But if there's one thing I know is that there are things that you absolutely do not do with a gun, and even then guns are a powerful tool to a point where I don't feel comfortable holding one.

To simplify it down to those four things probably wouldn't be perfect examples to what happens in reality as a whole with how many nuances there are to this topic.

I think that's actually a good point because if anything, having guns in the home can mystify them for you and make them seem less like an enticing solution to one's problems, because your vision of them isn't clouded by edgy movies and news stories.

I didn't grow up with guns, but I had a lot of issues in high school and - as much as I hate to say it - did at certain times fantasize about getting horrible revenge against the people I felt had wronged me. I had no experience with guns so having one seemed like the ultimate form of power and control; perhaps if I'd grown up with them my whole life I wouldn't have looked at them that way.

In any case I'm glad I at least had a watchful mom who made sure I wasn't too alone with my dark thoughts. But it's always true that if you have someone hellbent on causing harm, they'll choose whatever options they have. And often times they're just as bad if not far worse than your typical mass shooting.

*fixed