this is what happens when "Popular" students pick on others that are not popular

this is what happens when "Popular" students pick on others that are not popular

Of course with access to a firearm.

You dont know that that was the case at all.... But all stories say he was a loner, not that he was bullied.

The murdered children were not bullies. Quit making things up and posting them. It makes you look ignorant.

Just so you know...sometimes "popular" kids pick on kids that act like a-holes... the unpopular kid isn't always the victim - sometimes he's the perpetrator. I know a kid who has never been disciplined at home. His father thinks they are best friends, but the kid is actually a manipulative jerk. He carries that behavior to school and is always getting into fights, getting expelled. At 16 he already has a restraining order against him. He always claims to be the victim, but when you get down to the facts you find out he's the one who instigated the whole thing. He's already been put in different schools...with the same results at each. He ends up the social outcast.

So you can't always blame the popular kids.

While I agree that bullying should be ended in schools, I've read in other articles that this particular incident was not related to bullying at all. In fact, the gunman didnt even know the kids he shot. They were not his "agressors," and many students have said that he was not particularly bullied in school, just a bit different.

These kids will be fine if they accept this is reality around the world. Just because it hits home doesn't mean people should be making PTSD excuses. Nobody said life is easy. Live your life and be happy with what you have. Everything disappears in the end.

I am sure these kids have no problem killing each other playing Modern Warfare 3.

Stacey,

I read it was an ex girlfriends new boyfriend and his friends. He knew all of them.

Are you really that ignorant , if you haven't noticed these shootings happen a lot in the US and that should be addressed. The boy was in trouble and did something horrible. and computer games will not help.

I read it was an ex girlfriends new boyfriend and his friends. He knew all of them

I read the same thing. Thought it was odd that they didn't mention that on the news.

Just because it hits home doesn't mean people should be making PTSD excuses.

I think watching people be killed and/or die in front of you while you're at school goes way beyond what kids would normally experience during their childhood. I can't imagine NOT have PSTD after being a witness to this. And just because they go through PSTD for a time doesn't mean they can't over come it through love, support and counseling. Those of us who weren't there really have to right to say how they should or shouldn't feel.

Bullied or not how about these kids find a different way to express their frustrations? Just like the "bullies" are not right for bullying- the kid that was bullied is just as wrong for killing another person..... How about instead of blaming his actions on his home life, or bullies, or drugs, or no friends, or an ex gf, or a mental problem. Lets blame it on the fact that NO ONE is learning anything from every tragic death that happens no one is doing anything- It's so sad and someone needs to get a grip on kids getting bullied I am not denying that, the amount of kids acting out and ending their own life or someone elses and blaming it on being "bullied" is over the rop- SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE! How about we dont focus on same sex marriages as those do not hurt anyone but maybe we should focus on why CHILDREN ARE KILLING OTHER CHILDREN, and why they think they have no other way of dealing with the situation.....

WillianOfRights

Which he stole!

Lets see

1. It was illegal for him to have the gun in the first place as you have to be 21 to buy a gun
2. It was stolen
3. It was illegal to have the gun on the school property
4. It is illegal to shoot at people
5. It is illegal to kill people
6. And I'm sure there were other laws broken too

How many laws does one have to break to murder people in a school with a stolen gun?

What more laws can be passed that will do no good either?

K. Snider,

I don't think many kids actually witnessed the shooting. Most reports claim they heard shots and ran.

Parents need to teach their kids this will happen, enough sheltering our children. It's time to prepare them for what can and will happen in life. Many parents as well as kids walk around thinking this will never happen to them. It's the most common response when these things happen. I think if parents spent more time making kids aware of these situations it would help minimize them in the future.

During my years in high school we lost four classmates, one was to an off campus shooting, the other three were suicide. This was in the 90's. It'snot fun but it doesn't have to be a life changing experience either.

WillofRights and Dee74 and EVERYONE else that thinks that TJ was bullied- Did you actually listen to any of these stories? I mean ANY of them? Did you read any articles or see any interviews with students that knew TJ? He was NOT bullied.

Let me repeat that, he WAS NOT bullied. I went to Chardon High and they take bullying very seriously. If he had been a Chardon student the teachers and other students would've brought his behavior and the behavior of others towards him to the administration's attention. (Which btw, they had to have already done since he was attending Lake Academy).

And no matter what he confesses, he knew those boys: Danny, Russell, Demetrius, Nick (he is still hospitalized) and Nate (young man grazed by a bullet). Joy was an innocent bystander. He knew all of them. They were all best friends in grade and middle school. They were not random.

No body can stop a person from praying in school. You just can't be vocal about it. But you knew that, right? The atheists know that, everybody knows that. But you didn't?

What, no outcry from the atheists of America

Where in the article does it say anything about God or prayer???

With any luck these kids will stand on their own two feet and meet the challenges of the world without beliveing in Santa Claus or any other sky fairy who certainly seems to delight in tormenting them.

Well, your random and unprovoked rant wins points for creativity, but this is an article about a tragic school shooting in Ohio. Not a holy war.

You seem to have confused no school sanctioned prayer in schools with your own all or nothing mindset. Atheists don't care if a group of kids organize a prayer group and pray to their hearts content.

They have a problem with the School forcing everyone to pray. And no, asking for a moment of silence after a tragedy is not a directive to pray, but to instead quietly contemplate the situation.

Sheesh, I really cannot get how hard that is to understand.

@SanDiego1969

Please... Come down from the ledge and take your happy pills now.

Nice and easy... that's it....

Thank you for make it obvious of your need to complain about an inferrior topic when lives were lost! A perfect example of whats wrong with the atheist of america!!!!!!

Well put Oliverb haha. SanDiego - you're a mindless tool - no one forced them to take part in "prayer." Simply don't go to the gathering if it's against your beliefs.

Thebatjoeny

Maybe the lack of reading comprehension is what's wrong with America.

One person comments about 'prayer' and everyone jumps on the bandwagon grouping the nay's or yay's together as in 'you always,' they always.'

May these children live in peace and their classmates rest in peace. There are at least 6 or 7 proven factors at work here that replicate themselves in each of these instances. One thing we do know is Violence begets Violence and the devil is always in the details. We will find what we always do. And that is that the Village could have done more to help raise this Child who committed this act. The Village obviously turned their backs, old and young, that's the crime, that it went this far.

As the Rolling Stones said;

Who killed the Kennedy's?

Well after all, it was you and me!

No one can stop STUDENTS from praying in school, that's their own choice. A student can ask a teacher or adult to pray with them, but it must be the student coming to the adult. The adult cannot ask a student to pray- because that is forcing a religion on them. These students are more than welcome to pray in school, on school property, and on public property like the Chardon Square.

sandiego1969, your comment is apropos to . . . what? And, Thebatjoeny, your point was . . . ?

There is a lot of prayer in schools. There are Christian clubs--Youth for Christ, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Young Life. All these clubs have access to school grounds and get the same sort of funding that any other group (like Future Business Leaders of America and DECA). Students can wear religious jewelry (unless all jewelry is banned), they can read religious texts (unless all outside books are banned), and they can wear t-shirts with religious slogans (unless all clothes with slogans are banned).

What students cannot do is proselytize around other students who have indicated that they are not interested or who are in a situation where they cannot get away from the proselytizers. They cannot disrupt a class, and they cannot be impolite (an Islamic student who doesn't think women should teach males is stuck if the teacher is female--trust me, this happened in my school) even if their religion teaches them that they don't have to regard certain people as "human."

I could go on, but the real question here is why don't churches play a more active role in the lives of students? Churches don't, where I live, give students a place to do their morning prayers (okay--they do run a yearly revival meeting before school--but that's just once a year). Churches don't, where I live, run daycares that pick children up after school and which give them daily Bible classes. Churches don't, where I live, have clubs to which the older students can belong, can go to after school and be monitored, and teach them to provide community service.

What the churches do around here is pour their money into the campaigns of Republicans for which they volunteer in droves. Actually doing something for their own children to make sure they get a proper religious education and pray daily--not so much.

Pretty much all the "atheists in America" (all 4% of them) want is to be left alone so that they can go to school to, you know, study. If students want to pray, let them pray, as long as they stick to the rules. The Supreme Court has upheld this view a gazillion times. Again, what is your point--given that this is a sad story about a young man who acted in a foolish way and several other young people are now dead. It's just sad all the way around--several dead teens, many destroyed lives, and a traumatized community. It's just sad.

yea - go ahead you idiot popular kids - keep making fun of other students and this is what happens

Go get therapy, please, right now.

If you have any guns, please notify the authorities and turn them in. Clearly, you have issues you need to resolve.

If you have any guns, please notify the authorities and turn them in. Clearly, you have issues you need to resolve.

Dee, I'm sorry to hear your H.S. experience was so dreadful. I wasn't "popular" either but I turned out just fine. Kids are kids regardless of their popularity standing. What happens in H.S. in truth has very little effect on what happens beyond it. Unless you're still harboring resentment... :-/

So tru ! Some people just seem to never leave that time of life.

Dee,

I agree with you.

Being popular is fine, but it does not have to include putting down or threatening those that are not as popular. Just because your family can't afford a North Face jacket, does not mean you should have to fear for your life each time you walk throught he halls on your way to class.

forgiveness...a radical concept

@dee724: get up and step away from the computer screen. There is a whole world full of truth out there that you are obviously missing

Yes, it is true that the "popular kids" make high school something closely akin to continuous emotional and mental torture for the other kids, because being able to exclude some people is what proves that they are powerful and popular. And, granted, such kids tend to be the favorites of the teachers and easily persuade them that the "unpopular" students are the trouble makers. Yes, the "popular kids" destroy the lives and futures of some kids.

That is an argument for home schooling and/or for bullying prevention and awareness. Not very many people remember high school fondly--most are very glad that it is over--so much so that there have to be projects like It Gets Better just to keep teens from committing suicide (which is all too common). So, admittedly, you have a point.

But, this young man was not being bullied by the popular kids. There was some sort of teen angst and drama going on. It is better to save your points, and perhaps to articulate them with a bit less vitriol, on stories that are appropriate.

What is it about this story that is bringing out the irrelevancies--prayer, "popular" students, etc.? Very odd.

Changing society? I got news for you. People have had the right and have exercised that right since the beginning of this country. What's changed is moral fiber or should I say the lack thereof. What gets in the heads of kids today that makes them lash out violently when 100 years ago kids didn't? It's certainly not the ownership of guns. Well all know people owned, carried and used guns then.

Personally, I think it's the nature of the media, movies, games and just plain bad parenting. Although I'm not going to blame any parents in this instance. I don't know enough about the situation to do that at this point.

population density has changed dramatically on this planet, and so the percentage of mentally ill people has likewise increased in kind. There may be more mentally ill people alive in the world today than there were people 250 years ago. Mental illness and access to guns is a recipe for disaster.

always an excuse for a person who does wrong.. it's always some one elses fault, something elses fault. if guns did not exist he would have been a perfectly normal kid right? ohh he was bullied right thats a great excuse. its the victims fault right? Wrong only one persons was at fault and thats the young adult who made his own desicion.

prevention was to realize this young adult had problems.maby if he got help maby if he was locked up. but then again some people can act totaly normal but a monster hides inside. he no longer needs help, he needs to be shall we say neutralized so he can never harm any one again and to show others with the same idea the results. guns, blades ,bombs, poisions, and locking doors and setting places on fire. bad/evil people will find a way. the only way to stop that evil it to stop it fast and stop it perminantly.

if guns did not exist we wouldn't be having this discussion at all and those kids would still be alive...

Remind me...what kind of gun did Cain use to kill Able?

bigmama: That's making the erroneous assumption that this student would not have acted out in another way which is wishful thinking at best. If the kid had it in his mind to kill people (and he did), there is a whole plethora of options he could have chosen from. The key word here is "mind" specifically the mind of the shooter. That is where the root of the problem lies. The gun was only a tool used to commit the crime. The only argument you can make with any truth is that the lack of a gun *might* have slowed him down though some methods can kill faster than a gun.

The pertinent fact being ignored here is that a gun doesn't do anything at all until a human being picks it up and pulls the trigger. If the kid had no access to a gun it would only have changed how the crime was committed, not if the crime was committed. If you ask Britons how their gun ban is going, they'll tell you that the criminals who can't get guns illegally are just using knives instead.

The shooter is a human being apparently chock full of problems he is unable to get past. Our efforts would be better spent teaching our kids how to not get to that point, and helping this kid get out of where he is now rather than decrying the availability of guns which will do nothing to address the root of the problem.

i would venture a guess that if guns did not exist we would not be having this discussion due to the fact some thing or some one bigger ate or smashed our ancestors. the right or might would have been the rule. and only the brute would have survived. is it not interesting that thousands of years passed with little real advancements social or technological in the world until not long after firearms were invented.

i may need to do a paper on that.

don't forget Sam Colt made all men equal.

multiple deaths with guns in a matter of seconds...killing can be accomplished without coming near a victim, no physical struggle, just pull the trigger...as long as there are disturbed kids with guns, there will be more shootings...i know a gun doesn't do anything till someone picks it up, but they do pick them up, don't they...peruse the alarming statistics on worldwide school shootings...the kids in Britain with knives just can't hold a candle to what's been going on here...

so what you are saying bigmama is, correct me if i am wrong. that we need to be able to fight back against the attacker,and or make the act of killing more of a personal thing?

wasn't there a rather large murder spree with a sword just a few years ago? and several with cars just plowing into groups of people? don't forget all the knife deaths. All those things are just tools. Until every one is full of love and understanding and no evil exists the rest of us need tools to defend life and limb.

Wow--irrelevancy after irrelevancy. Kids have always been violent--they use guns if they have them, or they beat each other up with fists, or they knife each other, or they shove one another over handrails and claim that the other "just fell." While it is good to have sensible gun control laws, it is silly to pretend that the young man could not have killed two or three people pretty quickly with a knife.

Columbine couldn't have happened with knives (well, okay, if they were better at explosives--that might have worked), but this incident could have. The whole concealed weapon thing is kind of irrelevant.

It would be great to have gun education at schools--so that perhaps children would not romanticize them, would not be quite so afraid and run the minute they see one (if the gun isn't pointing at you, you can't get shot--so all those not being pointed at could have grabbed the gunman), and they might have a better idea of how to behave. The fact that the young man could get at a gun might well have fueled him to act out about his fantasies of revenge (apparently this was a teen romance thing)--but this is not a proximate or ultimate cause; it was just a contributing factor. Gun training and some healthy respect for weapons might actually have had the effect of making this less likely.

lol, drama queen.

So you had to go political when this is about grieving, and remembering these special people. Shame on your fanatical personality! Shame on you…

It is not just the mentally ill who are using hand guns to deal with their interpersonal issues. Gun violence is learned from watching others commit acts of gun violence on those they know and the "acceptability" of guns in all aspects of society as promoted by the NRA and concealed carry folks. Husbands kill wives they are upset with, wives kill husbands, employees kill employers and yes students other students. Perhaps the NRA needs to subsidize alternative conflict resolution instruction in all facets of society to balance what they are promoting. Over time the acceptability of killing those we disagree with will continue to gradually increase, the bar will be continually lowered as it has been.

i have used one of those nra/concealed weapons to save a pregnant woman and her child from a monster. Should we just let the innocent suffer the brutality of evil so you can pretend better that the world is safe and warm?

evil exists all over the world, husbands burn there wives alive on other places and many other vile crimes happen as well. the US is one of those countrys where we don't put an end to criminals we make them celebrities.

i wish those highschoolers has been better protected, but bleeding hearts didn't want to keep the bad one away from them. The let a monster walk through victims. and now to many are blameing the victims. try blameing the monster. and the failure to keep him from the others. Would you toss an mentaly damaged attack dog into a room of lambs and then blame the lambs?

feinstein...fanatical personality? go political? I don't derive my objection to gun proliferation from any sort of political thought...just that I am a mom with kids in school and can easily put myself in the places of the parents who just lost children to yet another ridiculous expression of insanity...the statistics are glaring...the USA is in this way deeper than any other place in the world. As a mom, this scares the hell out of me and I grieve for everyone in Chardon.

Didn't a school in the middle east get blown up recently because they were teaching....girls....

really the USA us so bad?

google it...worldwide school shootings...yes, the situation here is far worse than anywhere else in the world...very sad but unfortunately true...parents take note, we are all in this together.

Feinstein, every time multiple children die of gunshots it is fitting to decry our little gun problem.

At the funeral of a victim of childhood cancer you would think nothing if the priest asked the mourners to pray for a cure. You would only say "oh there you go again, getting political" if you had a fetish for childhood cancer.

I have had to use my concealed weapon to protect myself from a couple of Spanish speaking gentlemen once and in the 25+ years I've had a concealed license my guns have harmed no one.

8 US Presidents have been NRA members. They are: Ulysses S. Grant,
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

80 MILLION law abiding gun owners didn't shoot anyone today, a few criminals did!!

Sup Holmes?

I'm glad to see the experience didn't affect you negatively or anything...

Maybe so...but he has the right to feel this way. When you experience something like he did then you can disparage him.

Did not blame his parents? His parents are charged with raising him if he was listed as a juvenile; otherwise you arecorrect. Still, parents today have abdicated their roles as parents.

Well Said. It is truly sad that any human had to go through what you /these innocent people did. We should stay focused on healing, and staying on subject as you have. We should not blame inanimate items of all shapes & sizes for our weaknesses, we should however be held accountable for what we choose to do to others, and take responsibility for our actions... Thank you for keeping a level head when replying. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you, and the people that are forced to endure this horrifying occurrence.

Except the Isle of Man.

cause and effect? letting a monster go to school with others. yea i do believe you are right on there.

nobody thought he was a monster before he killed...if these things were really obvious, many school killings could be averted, but teens are apt to act sulky, withdrawn and anxious at times...we all did it, so did our friends...the breaking point is sometimes reached when no one notices...and then it is too late.

Hmm are you sure no one new he was..... troubled? as a cop once said" we can't help you untill he trys to kill you or kills you.". Maby thats why kids stayed away from him? This was not the act of a depresed bullied teen who wanted to end it all. this was a predator who finaly decided to act.

we don't know , do we? there could be many "monsters" and who would know...I'm saying these things are not always obvious...there were plenty of odd and unhappy kids at my school, we just paid no attention to it...nobody snapped but that was just the luck of the draw...nobody thought this kid was particularly threatening

This wasn't a case of bullying. This boy was emotionally and psychologically destroyed by his "upbringing". There is no one at fault at this school. It is just tragic.

Lift weights and fight back.

Geezstring, approximately how long ago did your heart harden and crack? Jeez, how bout a little compassion?!

U mad bro?

If God has been left out it is the fault of the parents. Called personal responsibility. What we keep hearing from the right. PERSPONAL RESPONSIBNILITY!

It is not the school's job to preach or teach Biblical lessons. That is the job or patrents and churches.

Parents have abdicated their roles and complain that someone else is not raising my kid right.

Failed parents. Most likely red neck cornfield Republicans.

Gun lovers who can't keep up with their guns.. It was in the barn the last time I knew says Uncle Hick.

kids in this mental state don't care about consequences any more than disturbed adults do...has nothing to do with politics, religion, parents, or anything but access to firearms to the mentally ill.

Even when parents teach religion and morals when are kids go to school with them the school because of some loud mouth atheist are not allowed to let the children have there beliefs. Schools don't say you have to pray at a football game nor is it madatory to attend but ONE letter from a loud mouth cry baby ruined it for everyone. So take your half truth BS to someone less educated. Also gun access is also BS because if you don't live under a rock you know that getting a gun no matter who you are does not take anything but cash. I can be honest about the way America is and guess what I lived in Florida in Titusville and had a man offer me a pistol on the street for 50$. Again your making up lies and excuses for a situation that it is no secret what the cause of it is. This mentally ill BS is nothing more than that BS. If even the mentally ill feared punsihment of any kind you would see less of this. WHY do you think long before we had the laws the way they are now the gun death numbers were lower? In fact in an era when there were no computers , electronic means of tracking people, and no social security but we hand plenty of guns the gun death were lower. WHY....because back then we taught that there was a GOD and a HELL which handed out punishment. OHHHH did you forget that this is stastically fact. You keep spreading the lies that help you sleep and I will keep telling the truth and we will see who can have the most positive impact.

WHT3 did you not notice the school was pretty well off and so were the students. and Redneck comes from the old days of unions not what you think they are.

Its great how dare i say it, intellectuals jump to conclusions on political affiliations of the parents as well as the income levels.

I have seen good parents fall apart when their kids grow old enough to do things on there own and break every rule and trust taught. but guess what the kid/young adult can act the whay they want. how many of you are the perfect child your parents wanted and created? how many of you did everything they said and never once acted irresponsible or did things wrong?....... some just go further than any of you and at that point you put an end to it.

Gez WHT3, you sound fanatically unstable, you don’t own any inanimate weapons or items that can hurt anyone do you? Seek help, pray for these people… as we are praying for you, and allow them time to heal /remember their friends and families…

once again WHT3 you must be an intellectual, you assume you know what happened and who raised or didn't raise him. look at the pictures do you see a single poor kid? this happens in rich places to. Some times people just become monsters.

Which is why they should not have access to guns!

Yes i have had firearms my entire life.cute toy guns and real guns. and out of all that time i have had to discharge my firearm once using 3 shots. Because i did a pregnant woman lived, her unborn child lived her 3 year old lived as well. maybe in the future she or her children will change the world. all i know for sure is with out that i may not have been able to make the difference needed. it is not the tool but how it is used.

Oh the man trying to kicking her in the stomach then stomping on her head trying to beat her to death..... Eh. maybe he lived maybe he didn't all that matters is the monster failed.

Outlaw and eliminate monsters not guns.

you are a hero...however it is not possible to eliminate monsters, more will crop up everytime one goes down. As long as the world is filled with hatred and fear, people will express it in one way or another

That is why tools are not to blame but a person. The totality of their life. perhaps monsters have bad upbringings perhaps something inside them makes them that way and they enjoy it and there is no way around it. all i know is treat people right but be wary because monsters have to be stopped and that we can do nothing but be carefully because we will meet them.

help those that have suffered through the evil, but never forget that a person became a monster by their own choice.

I'll sign up for the first.

You're talking about the coasts vs. flyover country.

Gez WHT3, this is not about you! You sound fanatically unstable, you don’t own any inanimate weapons or items that can hurt anyone do you? Seek help, pray for these people… as we are praying for you, and allow them time to heal /remember their friends and families…

Without the guns you will never ever have the first. that nation would be taken over so fast your head would spin.