What Cuts Deeper Than a Bullet?

Originally posted by Pixiefyre
Back when I was growing up, you were taught to stand up for your siblings, children or parents, that family trumped all. The day of my younger sisters 8th grade graduation, a bully that was 3 years older than her decked her in the face after she stood up to his taunts as we walked down the street. We went home and there was no hiding the red welt on her cheek. My father grabbed a baseball bat and went up to where the guy was hanging out....he ran...dad took his car keys and came home. The kid called the police, and they told him dad had every right to take the action he did, then they arrested him and put him in juvie for battery. My dad would be in jail today.

That is an angle I never even thought of. It is true too, as people are brainwashed, I mean taught to let authority handle everything! When I was younger, if anyone messed with any of my sisters, or cousins or friends, they messed with me. And vice versa. I remember one day heading out to my cuz school, and beating the living hell out of two kids that jumped him. No charges ever pressed. I am still young, only 30 now, but things are way different now.

I am glad my two girls can handle themselves physically with all the matrial arts training.

Then again I am a country boy, things are done differently from the rest of the world there lol. I remember lots of things that would never happen anywhere but the country. Like when I was making fun of one kid, his father brought him over. We fought in the backyard, and afterward became friends. Imagine the outrage that would stir up had it happened somewhere else?

reply to post by TheRedneck


A lot of the kids I remember growing up back in the day that had the bully vibe, their parents were never one to spare the rod either though. It seemed to me there was two different kinds of thinking, those that feared getting a whooping for getting trouble at school, and those that didn't care much.

reply to post by TheRedneck

Our society is the reason for this situation

i completely agree with you there. it seems the farther we move away from the "outdated, traditional ways", the more decrepit society becomes. sex and violence sell in this dog eat dog world.



this short 42 second film illustrates the concept well. the shy unpopular kid doesn't go looking for a fight, but after being tormented for years, what else can you do? both he and the bully were suspended. the school says it's safe, supportive, and productive, but kids at the school say daily fights occur and are often filmed and posted online.

school shootings are undoubtedly an all around tragedy, but when someone is bullied like this, i can't hold the kid accountable for the shootings.

reply to post by TKDRL

You make a good point; I remember those kids as well. They seemed to be impervious to the pain aspect, but they were not impervious to embarrassment. That was their Achilles heel and I saw teachers use it to their advantage on more than one occasion.

It just goes to show that there is not a single answer. Paddlings work well for most but not all, and it is the responsibility of parents and teachers alike to find out what works and use it.

The responsibility of the government is to get the Hades outta the way. Regulations are a poor substitute for discipline.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Bob Sholtz

school shootings are undoubtedly an all around tragedy, but when someone is bullied like this, i can't hold the kid accountable for the shootings.

That's the sad part. He has to be held accountable. He has crossed a line that cannot be crossed.

Remember I have said that one shooting is two too many? That's sort of what I was referring to. Last time I heard, three of the victims had died, but in reality four kids died that day. The shooter died inside. He is just a shell now, a person with no hope left whom we have to care for for the rest of his life.

There are not only three families grieving; there are four.

I feel for everyone affected by this tragedy, on both ends of the gun.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck

don't get me wrong, i agree that reform is FAR better than resorting to homicide, but if the bullied kid only shoots the people who constantly bullied him for years, he may be punished, but i feel he is justified.

the law will probably never be able to quantify pain, but at some point the shooter's actions become justified. morality is often based on motive, not action. motive is the difference between self defense and murder.

reply to post by Bob Sholtz


Actually that video is a bit misleading.
The fat kid is the victim and finally snapped and retaliated after being made fun of and attacked multiple times.

It was all a timing issue showing the scrawny kid "standing up for themselves"

They were actually the bully their bullying just wasn't shown in this video.

reply to post by Pigraphia

i know, that's what i was getting at. maybe it wasn't clear in my post, but i completely agree with what the big kid did. those other kids had been tormenting him for a long time, and one got what he deserved.

reply to post by Bob Sholtz

That video shows what I have been clumsily trying to get across. Thank you for posting it.

Bully torments victim for days, weeks, months, even years.
No one pays any attention.
Victim finally has enough, and fights back.
Everyone notices and calls victim a bully and bully a victim.
Bully then gets to continue his bullying because fighting back gets the victim into trouble.

It happens a lot, an awful lot. When a bully is looking for a victim, he gets to choose his time and place. He will typically choose one where he doesn't get noticed. But when a victim fights back, he doesn't get to choose; he is responding to the bully who has already chosen the time and place. Plus, once a bully "has his bluff in on" the victim, his actions are not as overt and noticeable as those of the victim when he fights back.

The end result is that the anti-bullying policies are actually encouraging bullying and discouraging the one thing that stops a bully: resistance from the victims.

The really dangerous part is that this situation is not relegated only to a school campus. It happens in everyday life as well. There are people who take extreme pleasure in tormenting others even as adults, and the same scenario plays out: any attempt to retaliate, to stop the bullying, results in the victim being labeled as the troublemaker. The adults who engage in this practice are the schoolyard bullies of yesteryear, now all grown up in body but still mentally a schoolyard bully.

And it never fails that somewhere along the line, someone gets hurt physically... but usually after many more are hurt psychologically.

Our society is upside down and backwards, and it seems everything we try to advance results in a worse problem than before... hence my 'nostalgia' that perhaps, if we keep getting indications we are making the problem worse, perhaps it would be better if we went back to the drawing board and started fresh, without all the present additional problems.

TheRedneck

Prime example of COWARDICE! One young man gets his ass beaten down at a party where he does not belong and he pulls out a gun and shoots....STRAIGHT COWARD!
________________________________________________________________

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 16-year-old boy was shot twice after strangers responding to a Facebook post arrived at a party.

Lovell Briggs, of Halliday Avenue, is in critical condition at MetroHealth Medical Center.
According to the police report:

Police were called at 10 p.m. Saturday about shots being fired in the 700 block of East 101st Street. Officers arrived and saw about 50 teens running from a home near St. Clair Avenue
.
Tyreece Blakely, 18, said he was hosting a party in the basement and someone posted the party location on Facebook. Teens he did not know began showing up and a fight broke out.

The fight spilled into the garage, where someone punched a boy who then pulled out a gun and fired two or three times. Lovell, who was trying to run out of the garage, was shot in the right shoulder and right rear hip.

Everyone ran outside and someone drove Lovell to the Cleveland Clinic. Paramedics took him to MetroHealth, where he was able to speak to officers. He could recall only that the shooter was wearing a black coat. He said he and his friends at the party didn't know the shooter or other boys involved in the fight.