Mental Health In School Shootings

Mental Health & Bullying: Where it stands in school shooters

When looking at the crisis that comes with school shootings most people turn to the media, the media often times has incorrect or one sided views of these school shooters by exclusively excluding them due to mental illness .School shooters shouldn’t be excused exclusively in terms of their mental health because school shooters are also perpetrators of bullying. In the case of many school shootings over the past years, most of the talk and commenting from the media always portrays them as the victim and even in some cases even try to make the assumption that other students should’ve been wary of this specific student mainly based off the fact that they seem them as someone who has

been bullied and even going as far as to say that if they were able to stop this bullying maybe they could’ve saved their fellow students lives. In this paper I am going to be explaining why we shouldn’t exclusively excuse these school shooters in terms of their mental health just because they are perpetrators of bullying.
When it comes to looking at the hows and whys of why a school shooter is a perpetrator of bullying you must look at the statistics and then begin to analyze them. A statistically known fact about most school shooters is that they are typically white males who are in the age range between 14-25, while this is a very wide range of people there has to be something specific about the way each one either grew up, was born with, or behaviors they gained socially that made them become the violent and harmful person they became. While sometimes it can be hard to examine what is behind a school shooter’s thinking because most usually die themselves in their atrocious acts, but the FBI was able to find that 71% of male shooters blamed their attack on being a victim of bullying (Reuter-Rice 2008). With this statistic in mind we are able to have a more insightful understanding of the social background of a school shooter is and while we can’t just profile people just by this one encounter, it still is able to slim down who would and wouldn’t commit these crimes.
When looking at how these school shooters are being perpetrators of bullying it is almost extremely difficult to come to a conclusion because we cannot just believe behind their reasoning nor ask their peers around them due to an obvious bias. Yet we can still take a look at the research and evidence behind some cases, for example in one study where they looked at factors that could affect males between the ages of 11-18 they found that most schools try to prepare and be protective based solely on environmental factors and the schools climate. When looking directly at these two factors we can determine based off this study that some school shooters school climate lacked preparedness when it came to personnel and counseling to help with their issues and overall a bad structural system within the school itself. Next the school’s environment, in the study they found that the need for having a strong and helpful community that is able to support its students and each other had a much better reaction and overall outcome.
Now I will be discussing my unstated assumption which is that anyone who is a perpetrator of bullying shouldn’t solely be exclusively excused in terms of their mental health.

Whenever a school shooting occurs the first reaction from most media outlets is that the student was bullied and friends and family just seem them as a “troubled child” who just needed to be guided into the right direction. When we look at bullying from its very beginnings in elementary school we shouldn’t begin to assume that those being bullied are solely going to be excused or looked at in terms of exclusively just their mental health. In one study that looked at the well-being of students who not only were bullied but were also the bullies, they found that most had issues that dealt with anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem and both of them are bound to have external and internal behavioral issues that can result in the above issues. Yet while this all might be accurate it shouldn’t be the only thing focused on, why are we so concerned on the issues surrounding just mental health? There are plenty of other factors that can come in from people who are being perpetrators of bullying, for example we can look at their social lives and home lives. These environmental factors can be very hard to study but by looking and comparing students in similar situations with similar outcomes we are able to get a small play by play that makes them who they are. In another study that looked specifically at the

social context in which we look at the way that perpetrators of bullying grow up and socialize with others. When I think of a bully I think of someone who is insecure with themselves and is often a loner or an outcast but that isn’t always the case, for example students who bully other students at a young age they are more susceptible to physical and psychological issues later in life if they start bullying their peers early in adolescent life. According to one article they states that there is another type of bully known as the socially intelligent bully that “has the ability to to interact and use their social structure to harass victims in social functions”. With this being said we can assume that we cannot just excluded anyone exclusively due to their mental health because they are perpetrators of bullying themselves.
To bring it all together I would like to say that if school shooters aren’t excused exclusively in terms of their mental health because school shooters are perpetrators of bullying themselves is true and if anyone who is a perpetrator of bullying isn’t exclusively excused in terms of mental health, then people shouldn’t turn or only look at the opinion of school shooters based off their one solid viewpoint of mental health being the only issue because they were perpetrators of bullying as well.
Now for my counter argument, I’ve decided to go with the viewpoint from the media which is that school shooters should be exclusively excused in terms of their mental health because they are perpetrators of bullying. According to one article the way that the media portrays and analyzes mass shootings makes the probability of another one happening very high due to copycats. Yet when it comes to explaining the motivations behind why mass shooters do what they do they tend to generalize and stick to the issue of mental health which in this case they should, and in one study I found that most media outlets focus on SMI of the shooter which is their serious mental illness and that they should do this to help generalize them to the public to help make more people aware of the only sign that matters.
Now in my rebuttal I have found even more evidence as to why the above argument cannot work because it simply allows the public to look and get the wrong information. When looking at one article I found that when the news media frames and generalizes a school shooter with only their mental health in mind that it could cause the public to view serious mental illnesses as the only reason why school shootings and mass shootings occur when in reality their have been several studies that show the wide range of factors that are involved. If the media outlets use this generalized and often incorrect view of the perpetrators of school shooters then the public would begin to use bias incorrect information when it comes to thinking that they would be able to identify a student who could possibly have a violent outburst ending in multiple deaths. When we are looking at and generalizing what the factors are behind a school shooter we need to try and examine multiple factors including them being the perpetrators of bullying because it can maybe be one of the main identifiers behind why they end up doing what they are doing. According to one article they talked about how it can be more common for school shootings to occur in a school that doesn’t have a lot of resources, and schools that have available counseling have seen lots of reduced violence but how are able to generalize these and be able to know when to help? According to this same article describes the most dangerous cocktail for a student to have that could possibly cause these shootings which are chronic stressors that happen back to back to certain students such as consistently making difficult and new transitions often, lack of parental guidance, lack or dangerous social interactions with peer influences.
I believe that we need to allow for schools to have access to better and more helpful resources, for example in an article that talks about the most recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida; Senator Todd Young describes that we need more mental health funding so that during gun background checks they will have stronger mental health screenings involved.

While this may not exactly solve the problem of guns getting in the hands of students who have mental health issues it definitely can decrease the likelihood. In one study done in a law medical journal they found that one of the main issues behind school shootings and their problem with not being able to detect the probability of one happening is because childhood mental illness goes undiscovered for so long that by the time it is figured out it is usually to late. One thing that I found in another article that would be able to help students and parents detect mental illness at a young age is if schools and mainly government could provide more funding for special education programs where these teachers are trained to see and work with students who are mentally unstable. Finally one more solution I believe that could help decrease the likelihood of these shootings from occurring is from one article that talks about how a program known as Mental Health Aid helps correctly inform the public and specifically teachers and parents on all the warning signs that occur in someone with a mental illness and also provides special

training in how to respond to these students as well.
In conclusion I would like to recap as to why I believe that my claim and reasoning are indeed true. I believe that school shooters shouldn’t be exclusively excused in terms of their mental health because school shooters are also perpetrators of bullying, and my claim also intact that media outlets need to stop focusing on just the mental health aspects surrounding a shooter and keeping it so generalized because this can give the public false information. If we are going to focus on mental health though, I believe there needs sufficient resources provided to schools so they can provide services for students and families of those affected with mental illness and I also believe that teachers and parents should be properly trained on looking at the signs and symptoms of any student that could possibly be at risk. In the past two decades the rise of school shootings has become increasingly significant and has caused students like myself to always be extra cautious at school, school has always supposed to have been our safe place, our one place where we can interact with other and get our education in a safe environment; but with every school shooting that occurs it chips off more and more pieces of our safety until we are literally at the point of becoming too scared to go to school. I hope that this paper can help open the eyes to some people that believe mental illness should be excused because these shooters were also the perpetrators of bullying and that they’re multiple aspects surrounding why they do what they do.