"Guns are not the problem."
"We have a people problem, not a gun problem."
"Walk up, not walk out."
"We need to stop bullying in schools."
These and other similar arguments have overwhelmed my newsfeeds in the last several weeks. I am not going to say that they are entirely wrong.
However, there is a problem the minute we begin to blame the children killed in mass shootings for the fact that they are being killed in their schools.
Anti-bullying campaigns began in 1999, following the Columbine shooting. Every state has adopted this legislation, which means that every child enrolled in a public school is hearing information intended to prevent bullying and intended to encourage positive relationships between students.
And yet.
It is 2018, 19 years after the implementation of anti-bullying campaigns. Kids may be hearing the information, but, at least according to lots of people with Facebook accounts, they aren't any nicer. They aren't changing behavior, and the graduating class of 2018 will likely have experienced and done the same amount of bullying as the class of 1998.
Moreover, the motivation for simple kindness toward others should not be "or else you will be shot in your learning environment."
If people truly believe that children need to be taught not to bully, and that that will end mass shootings, then it needs to be reflected at every level of society. Parents must be polite and kind toward even the most annoying people in their lives. Role models, like the president, must stop getting into Twitter fights, stop badmouthing others, and stop promoting violence. Children's media must stop illustrating certain kids as "weird". We have to choose, as a society, to be kind. To everyone. Children do not see examples not shown to them, so being nice to others needs to be a widespread effort, and it can't just be because "otherwise we'll die". It needs to be altruistic for it to have an impact.
It starts with you thanking people in the service industry, with you holding the door even when you don't feel like it, with you not losing your temper even when the airline agent is being downright hateful, and with you being a polite airline agent when you're behind the counter.
The fact is, it's pretty likely that school shooters were not only bullied by people their own age. If we are to assume that they are all ostracized former students (which they aren't - look at Las Vegas - but we're operating under this assumption), then chances are, they're ostracized at home, they're judged by their neighbors, and they're mocked by adults who think they are not good enough.
We all take credit for that, not just the kids who are made out to be brats, ingrates, and evil bullies.
I think we can agree that it's unlikely global society is spontaneously going to change.
So. How do we solve the problem?
Well, if we can spontaneously agree to stop bullying at every level (because like it or not, that's what it is at every age), then children will see the example and learn from it. No anti-bullying campaign is going to stop mass shootings if we can't eradicate hate speech, racism, sexism, and all the other "grown up bullying" that occurs everyday.
Until then, we have to reduce access to something so clearly intended for killing. Introduce license and registration laws, introduce training, introduce background checks... but change something. And stop blaming kids for their own unsafe learning environments.