What Causes School Shootings

“The Major Cause of School Shootings”
There has been quite a bit of controversy about the causes of school shootings. Causes like bullying, mental illness, childhood maltreatment have been discussed as some of the causes. “Working to increase coping skills and self-esteem in people would decrease these occurrences,” Justin Nutt, SJS Staff Writer, explains. The main cause of school shootings is lack of coping skills and low self esteem.
If people learned how to cope with their emotions and had higher self esteem, there would not be as much anger and sadness in the population. For example, children who are being bullied in school feel as though they are the target and being attacked from their peers. Many school shootings, including

the one which occurred in Washington in the fall of 2017, find the cause to be bullying. If the case was further examined, we could understand that the victim being bullied had no coping skills. To help himself through the brutal, high school years, 15-year-old Caleb Sharpe felt as if his only escape from the pain was to cause pain to the bullies. Bullying is a serious issue in many high schools and could be reduced if schools promoted anti-bullying programs along with coping skills. This would further reduce the amount of school shootings across the country.
Coming from the opposing side of the scenario, the bullies have reasons for bullying. The bullies too lack coping skills and have low self-esteem because they direct their negative emotions onto others around them. Putting people down is the primary effect of low self esteem. “Low self-esteem individuals tend to be pessimistic towards people and groups within society,” suggested by psychologist, Saul McLeod. If we can encourage coping skills for the bullies even before the bullies victims, we can stop bullying and stop school shootings.
Mental illness and childhood maltreatment have been proven to sometimes be the causes of school shootings. Nevertheless, the shootings happen because people with mental illness and childhood maltreatment are not getting the correct care. Mental illness is dealt with my doctors and medicine. If the correct treatment is not provided, there will be unexpected behavior. Childhood maltreatment can be dealt with my doctors as well, but they use coping strategies to help benefit their patients.
Bullying, mental illness, and childhood maltreatment are all proven to be factors leading into school shootings. However, all of these factors involve ineffective coping strategies and low self-esteem. To solve the issue of school shootings and stop the trauma around the world, we need to have a proactive approach. Children need to be taught how to handle their emotions and cope with the negative ones. They also need to be taught ways of increasing self esteem in such crucial times of their lives, such as high school. Furthermore, school shootings will no longer occur if this is done.

Works Cited
Kamrowski, Libby. “Student accused in Washington school shooting blamed 'bullying'.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 14 Sept. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-washington-school-shooting/student-accused-in-washington-school-shooting-blamed-bullying-idUSKCN1BQ00J.
McLeod, Saul. “Saul McLeod.” Simply Psychology, 1 Jan. 1970, www.simplypsychology.org/self-esteem.html.
LAC, Justin Nutt BSW LMSW. “School Shootings and Possible Causes.” Social Justice Solutions, 1 Oct. 2015, www.socialjusticesolutions.org/2013/12/14/school-shootings-possible-causes/.