Remember the phrase “going postal?”
It may have faded from widespread use in recent years, but back in the eighties and nineties, it meant “someone who’d been driven over the edge to insane, explosive violence”. The term came from a series of massacres at post offices,n in the eighties and early nineties, including one in Edmond, Oklahoma that killed fifteen (including the shooter). In a series of incidents fro 1983 to 1995, 43 were killed and 23 were wounded in fifteen separate instances at post offices.
The US Postal Service spent years, and millions, trying to figure out what the problem was, and endeavoring to make working for the Post Office less…psychotic-break-y. The violence has subsided below “public punch line” levels – the phrase “going postal” has largely receded as a common idiom – although it hasn’t exactly stopped.
Anyway – the nation is currently focused on school school shootings…
…well, no. The nation is focused on school shootings that happen in middle-class suburbs, with victims who look like the children of NPR executives. Black and brown kids being mowed down on the streets of Detroit and their living rooms in Chicago and New Orleans, shot by mundane common criminals in episodes that illustrate the utter failure of Democrat center-left socialism, not so much.
But I digress.
Many of these episodes have one thing in common. No, it’s not guns; it’s a kid – usually a boy, usually a boy who looks like the child of an NPR executive – who was picked on, bullied, rejected, ostracized, mellow-harshed, or otherwise tormented by someone, something, or some part or parts of the whole system. Whatever the impetus, they get in their heads the need to take…it out on their school (as at Columbine and Parkland) or someone’s school anyway. The profile has become borderline cliche; a not-entirely mentally stable boy (like there’s such a thing as a stable teenager), bullied or shunned or otherwise marginalized, by others or even themselves, hatches a plan to get revenge on their tormentors – which often as not means “everyone at school”.
And while it’s not always big suburban public schools – Erik Weise killed nine in and around the Red Lake Reservation school in a shooting whose 13th anniversary passed yesterday – it’d be hard to miss a correlation with shootings at schools in the ‘burbs, like Columbine and Parkland (and Sandy Hook, although Adam Lanza was just plain insane across the board), and even big amalgamated rural schools (John Jason McLaughlin, who killed two at Cold Spring/Rocori, one of the big schools created by amalgamating several rural town schools together).
It’d also be hard to miss what it’s not: parochial schools, charter schools, schools tightly rooted in communities (civic, faith, educational or any other) big or small.
So – what is it about American middle-class schools that creates spree killers?
Doesn’t our education system have at least the same obligation to analyze itself as the Postal Service did?
If the potential for violence was that easy to spot, there would be far fewer dead people.
As a former LEO, I can say that we do a pretty good job of finding aspiring spree killers in the planning stage. We can, of course, do better. I’ve long advocated for public service announcements which describe the planning stages and what to do when such a profile is detected. In the case of Stoneman-Douglass, the community did what was required. Four levels of law enforcement plus the school and school district failed them. People should be fired for such stupidity.
As a former LEO, I can say that we do a pretty good job of finding aspiring spree killers in the planning stage. We can, of course, do better. I’ve long advocated for public service announcements which describe the planning stages and what to do when such a profile is detected. In the case of Stoneman-Douglass, the community did what was required. Four levels of law enforcement plus the school and school district failed them. People should be fired for such stupidity.
If the potential for violence was that easy to spot
This isn’t about spotting potential.
This is about responding to a correlation: young, bullied/tormented/mentally unstable males in dysfunctional factory schools. Why do they seem to together like horse and carriage?
I don’t see Mitch’s question focusing on finding the individuals likely to “go postal” as much as focusing on the conditions that cause people trapped inside the system to “go postal.”
For example, if the Post office gives veterans bonus points on the civil service exam, then they’re likely to hire a lot of veterans. If veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder at higher rates than civilians, then the Post Office workforce will eventually become PTSD-intensive. If PTSD employees are subjected to stressful working conditions, they may be more likely to have a negative reaction which is generally suicide but could be a violent outburst.
Can’t stop giving the points. Can’t refuse to hire PTSD vets. But maybe we can restructure hours of operation, delivery routes, work routines, sit-stand work stations, improve lighting and ventilation, re-train supervisors, reshuffle production quotas, acquire better technology . . . things that would reduce the stress for all employees in the workplace and thereby reduce the likelihood of suicide and gunfire?
Now apply that style of thinking to students in public schools. What changes could we make that might reduce the stress on students and thereby reduce the likelihood of suicide and gunfire?
Why no mass shootings in private schools?
Parents have a lot more invested in a private school kid. Over $10k/year per kid where I live. That speaks to greater parental involvement. A second factor is that a looney kid will be expelled by a private school. If he started acting out to the point where expulsion was threatened, there would likely be an intervention by school staff + parents.
It is hard to believe that Cruz would have been allowed to deteriorate as much as he did in a private school environment. He would either be expelled or forced into psychiatric treatment.
Boys are kinetic, hands-on learners, generally, and they are impulsive with undeveloped if/then filters. Leave a piece of equipment in the room with my 7 and 4 year old grandsons, and when you come back it will be dismantled. This type of behavior is not conducive to government factory schools, and makes boys the prime targets for doping by their schools to prepare them for a degree in “sitting still”, I suppose. Of course, when they go off their meds, a certain percentage of these boys will be even worse off, as we’ve seen too often. This isn’t new information I’m sharing.
What i’m becoming curious about, and would like to see studied, is how many of these middle-aged white males committing suicide in the west and mid-west – who would have been elementary-school students in the late 60s and the 70s – were doped the gills as students? Lack of higher education, and a tendency for lower income jobs and/or underemployment appear to be factors in the mortality rates. How many of these men taking their lives today were taking school-administered drugs 40 years ago?
I apologize to Willis Eschenbach and his excellent blog Skating Under The Ice for quoting a tad more than fair use – but this needs to be said.
It speaks to the question: “So – what is it about American middle-class schools that creates spree killers?”
That list of killers and their prescriptions can be traced back to a John Noveske according to the various sites that used it. I wish there was a way to check it’s authenticity.
Same here.
I’ve heard – but can’t remember where – some questions about the list.
I’m also loathe to accept panacaeas – or, I guess, anti-panacaeas, in this case.
Peter Hitchens has been banging this drum for years, especially with respect to Islamic terrorist attacks — Hitchens believes that many if not all Islamic terrorists take powerful psychotropic drugs before they begin their attacks.
His blog in the UK Mail is worth a read. Hitchens is a sort of ultra-Tory, a small Englander, and he is not terribly fond of the United States.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/
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I cannot vouch for accuracy of the list. It could be fake news, it could be real. I should have mentioned that. Sometimes things just seem to true to check. (not good)
Greg,
whether the list is accurate or not, it speaks to my point: what is it about schools that creates depressed, mentally ill, too-frequently suicidal, sometimes homicidal kids?
what is it about schools that creates depressed, mentally ill, too-frequently suicidal, sometimes homicidal boys?
Fixed it for you. Not to overlook the non-boys who should quite obviously be nurtured and cherished and favored to the point that it creates depressed, mentally ill, too-frequently suicidal, sometimes homicidal boys… hey…
So, anyone want to compare the amount of money in political contributions given by Big Pharma to the amount given by the NRA?
Is it school that creates mental illness, or a sucky home life? I think we need a few more working hypotheses to test.
For reference, I am aware of some studies that do attempt to track the lethality of taking psychotropics vs. not taking them, and I believe that the current consensus is that properly administered, they actually decrease it. On the flip side, I’ve heard conspiracy guys (yes, I know) claim that Eli Lilly has a fund for paying off Prozac issues. I would dare suggest that a good look at the data–what portion of school shootings involve SSRIs or other drugs, etc..–would be in order.
But primarily, that first question. What makes these kids lose it to the point they “need” these drugs? Or are they over prescribed? Did the kids that did this meet DSM criteria, etc..