Q&A of the Day – The Connection Between Bullying & School Shootings 

Q&A of the Day – The Connection Between Bullying & School Shootings 

Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.  

Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com  

Gettr, Parler & Twitter: @brianmuddradio  

iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.     

Today’s entry: I have listened to you for years and respect your honesty and direct truths, you are right, we need more children involved with churches, scouts, sports, etc. The thing needed is parental involvement and support to make this happen. 

The thing that I believe is at the root of most of these shootings is bullying. These people are angry and violent, looking for an outlet to lash out. Bullied somewhere in their life. Whether it was at school, home or other situations.  

I believe every person involved with children needs to search out and be aware of bullying going on. Parents, teachers, coaches, bus drivers, etc...need to nip it in the bud.  

Bullying destroys self-esteem and instills a fear of having no control over their life situation.   

When my young son was in kindergarten, he was being bullied walking home. He came in the door sweating hard from running away from them. Fear in his eyes. I told him that tomorrow I would be outside, and he was to point out the boys who were doing this. That next day I was there...I marched across the street and confronted the three boys. I loudly told them that if they bothered him again, I would have the police there the next day and that we would all go to their homes to let their parents know what they were doing. 

It never happened again...I further taught my son to be sure to defend any person who he saw being bullied.   

Thanks Brian, I love your show and am grateful for your opinion and investigations of important issues. 

Bottom Line: You raise a good point, and there’s been a common thread which has been woven through most school shootings since the onset of the horrific modern trend brought about at Columbine in 1999. Once bullied kids acting out in the most unthinkable ways. How common is the theme? Consider our country's ten worst school shootings.  

• Columbine 1999 – The two attackers were known to have been bullied by predominantly athletes. This led to them becoming bullies themselves in what they called the “Trench Coat Mafia” prior to their eventual attack.  
• Red Lake Senior High School 2005 - The attacker was found to have been both sexually abused as a child and extensively bullied at school 
• West Nickel Mines School 2006 - The attacker was 32 years old and had recently lost a child 
• Virginia Tech 2007 - The attacker was South Korean and known to have been bullied over cultural differences and a speech impediment 
• Sandy Hook Elementary 2012 – the attacker was physically bullied to the point of frequently coming home bruised  
• Oikos University 2012 – The attacker, a 43-year-old nursing student, was known to have been ostracized for his age and as a male nursing student 
• Umpqua Community College 2015 – The mixed-race attacker was bullied through school and stated he’d been hated since birth 
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas 2018 - The attacker was known to have been extensively bullied, starting with his own brother with aggression manifesting itself repeatedly prior to the attack 
• Santa Fe High School 2018 - The attacker was known to have been bullied by both students and coaches  
• Robb Elementary 2022 - The attacker was known to have been bullied extensively over a stutter and familial status which led to documented aggression prior to the attack  

By documenting these accounts there’s no doubt a series of themes with bullying being the second most common. Here are the five most common similarities among the perpetrators: 

• All eleven attackers were male 
• Ten were bullied 
• Six were White 
• Five overtly denounced God (four specifically targeted believers in their attacks) 
• Four physically acted out on others prior to the attacks 

There’s another key theme, they’ve all happened in the age of the internet. Though guns are older than our schools, and bullying certainly isn’t new, each of the ten worst school shootings in American history have happened since Columbine in 1999. There’s no doubt bullying is far worse today than it was for generations prior to the internet. While school bullies are nothing new, the bullying would at least stop at the end of a school day. The advent of cyber-bullying means it never does. Also, the ease with which online-based bullying takes place, not requiring an actual encounter, has led to a proliferation of students being bullied. A study published in Psychology today found 23% of students are cyber-bullied. More opportunity and more bullying no doubt are factors here. According to a government study on the topic they determined: 

Kids who are bullied can experience negative physical, social, emotional, academic, and mental health issues. Kids who are bullied are more likely to experience: 

• Depression and anxiety, increased feelings of sadness and loneliness, changes in sleep and eating patterns, and loss of interest in activities they used to enjoy. These issues may persist into adulthood. 
• Health complaints 
• Decreased academic achievement—GPA and standardized test scores—and school participation. They are more likely to miss, skip, or drop out of school. 
• 80% of school shootings had a history of the student being bullied 

So yes, we have a bullying problem, and it's been proven to be one of the most common themes in those who carry out school shootings. That’s something that as parents we certainly can and should be more responsible in managing especially if it's our child who is a bully.