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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

School shooters being bullying victims striking back is a myth. It is a made up explanation that has little to do with who school shooters are and why they do what they do.

Hint: they are more likely to be bullies themselves, as their aggression is raising prior the attack.

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There's plenty of evidence that show a good chunk of school shooters are or were bullied :

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35058114/

I used to read awful lot about them in a period of my life.

> 76% posted disturbing content of guns and threatening messages.

This is them provably being bullies as judged by their own social media accounts.

> 60% reported being bullied in-person or online

This is them claiming to be bullied at some point in their life. Elliot Roger claimed to be rejected by women while what happened was that he self isolated entirely for whole his life. This was similar to other guys - a person with track record of violence or threats feeling bullied by other people basically existing.

Compare the two claims, really.

Elliot Rodger was also given a copy of “The Present” by his parents in response to his emotional distress, so i think it’s fair to look at his home as a place of emotional neglect, possibly bullying.

edit: The Secret, not The Present

I dont know what you mean by "The present" here. They allowed him to homeschool and isolate himself, so they were enablers, I would agree with that. He does not report being bullied by them in his manifesto.

He socialized basically exclusively online before going to the college.

Curious! Can you share evidence to back up the claim that they are more likely to be bullies themselves?

I had period where I obsessively read too much about those cases. That was pattern I have seen. The first media usually contained such speculation, the later reports did not really confirmed it. What those contained were stories of other kids being attacked by them or afraid of them.

"just trust me, bro" is an inadequate source or citation

Show me three whose lives show them being bullying victims striking back. Go to read a biography of pretty much any popular one and you find raising levels of aggression toward people around. I have yet to see a ONE that would be a bullying victim lashing back.

Really, show me some that were primary bullying victims string back.

Adam Lanza and Elliot Rogers had both mental health issues and family that allowed them to isolate themselves. Adam Lanza mom was reported to be afraid of him before the end and basically in abusive relationship with him (where he was the abusers) before being killed. In case of Nikolas Jacob Cruz, you see volatile boy threatening and attacking others including a girl that school assigned to tutor him. She stopped because he was bullying her. He WAS ostracized and lonely as a results ... but that is the kids avoiding the bully who mistreats them rather then him anything else. He had host of mental health problems for sure too.

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