I am not disagreeing or agreeing that the kids being picked on was the cause. Articles like this completely miss the boat. Being bullied has been around for ages. People tried to bully me a few times. It didn't work out so well for them. Though, I did have a couple of fights. Usually, it just took me having the balls to stand up to them. Using a gun to "fight" an unarmed kid in high school is pretty much a pussy act. If they can figure out exactly when kids stopped turning into adults and starting become whiny bitches instead, that would probably help a lot. Maybe I am being too harsh...

ITS FUCKING PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT ARE THE MATCH THAT LIGHTS THE SCHOOL SHOOTING POWDERKEG!!! THESE POOR KIDS WERE HARRASSED NOT "BULLIED"!!! TO A FURTHER POINT, THEY WERE CRIMINALLY HARASSED TO THE POINT WHICH THEY BECAME INSANE!!!!!!! IT IS BECAUSE OF "INNOCENT BULLYING" THAT THESE THINGS HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!! INSTEAD OF SITTING ON YOUR ASS AND BITCHING ADMIT YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM AND TRY TO STOP IT!!!!!!!

P.S. I AM NOT ADVOCATING WHAT THEY DID, JUST TRYING TO PREVENT IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!

So they had to pick up a fucking gun to make it better? Shoot innocent kids who never hurt or even talked to them?! Tell that to the familys of the kids who were twelve years old with a fucking hole in thier chest beacuse some kid who couldn't stand up for himself went out and shot him beacuse he couldn't deal with it!! Take the gun to their own fucking heads and leave other kids out of it! They shot innocents and their fucking friends! Damn them if you ask me. What if that was your brother or sister? Your son or duaghter?! Would you smile and take it that they shot your family beacuse they were being bullied?!?!?

FUCK YOU.

I think the education system is to blame here.

Back when I was in school when someone pissed you off, you got into a fight. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost, usually you got a black eye, but that was it. I think the longest I got suspended was for three days. Just as I was finishing up high school, things started to change. Now if you got into a fight, you were almost immediately reviewed for expulsion. I think this causes anger to build up because kids can't just go punch someone in the face like they used to. I think this is one of the reason why more kids are snapping and doing really stupid things.

Another way to look at it is this: If a kid gets beat up every week, its not good. But at least there is evidence so the bullies can get in trouble. Now, since the bullies know if they beat up the kid they can get expelled, they instead continuously harass the kid in ways that you cannot prove (constant name calling, spreading rumors about things like if they are gay) which I think causes even more physiological damage than getting beat up. Also, when a kid comes home with a black eye, their parents know something is up. Most of these kids that snap never tell their parents that anything is wrong, so they have no idea that their kid was being harassed until it is too late.

I think schools should go back to being a little more lenient when kids fight. Quite honestly its part of growing up.

Kids are cruel little bastards. I don't think adults appreciate what some picked-on kids have to go through every day. I was one of those kids, and I had to somehow tolerate shit that I think any adult would have a hard time dealing with. The kind of behavior I was subjected to would get you fired in the workplace. There were very few repercussions for such behavior in school...maybe if it got out of hand the teachers would step in, but more often than not they would look the other way if they could. One one level I can't blame them, punishing cruelty at a school would be kind of like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.
Anyway, you can get to feeling very trapped. If you face that kind of behavior in the workplace, you can sue for harassment, or find another job. In high school, neither of those options exists. In high school I fantasized many times about doing a Columbine. The only reason I didn't was that I knew I couldn't do anything like that without ruining the rest of my life. And I knew that if I stuck it out long enough, the school would have to let me go eventually. That was the only thing that kept me going. But I can see how a kid with less foresight than that would reach a critical mass of hopelessness and do something desperate.
I'm not so sure I agree with the author that rising expectations of masculinity are the issue...he cites some evidence, but I'm not sure men today are expected to be any more manly than they were in the past, in fact I think in many ways we've become a feminized society. I think the real issue is the cruelty kids do to each other. Boys have always felt the need to prove their masculinity, and the easiest way to do that is to kick another boy's ass or call him a faggot. Of course, it becomes a vicious, endless cycle.
Thank Christ I'm not in school anymore.

There's a clear double standard at work in today's society...on one hand, the media propogates the kind of image that the article mentions. It advocates violence, confrontation, and muscular builds that not that many people can achieve.

On the other, we have reality, what Tyler Durden describes in Fight Club accurately enough to make one uncomfortable. I don't support a lot of Nietzsche's beliefs, but he was right in that there is value in violence. Violence is an inherent primal instinct, and to attempt to completely sublimate that instinct is rather foolish-human nature will out, one way or another. We don't watch sports for the game: it is the essence of competition that matters, psychological or physical.

Modern law doesn't make room for this fact of human nature. Simple fights can easily end in lawsuits, and even among cases among minors are pursued in court. I know about that from experience. As others have already said, the threat of expulsion for something as minor as a schoolyard fight gives rise to a feeling of impotency, and frustration mounts. School counselors are almost useless in alleviating that general feeling, and in the modern family where daycare and babysitters do more parenting than parents themselves, the problem only becomes worse.

The solution lies in personal responsibility, particularly on the part of the parents. Personally, I'd like to see an overall much more lenient attitude taken on behalf of school administration, but suburbanites are still too scared to let something like that happen.

I didn't really harrass any one in high school. If you noticed, every time I was picked one or harrased, I took care of the problem. I did not once say that I harrassed others. Every one makes a quip here or there, but I was never a bully ass wipe. I don't "need" to put some one down to entertain myself, but I will respond when provoked.

G'WURD!