Leaving aside the understandable shock and horror that the Florida school shooting caused, one nevertheless would have to have a heart of stone not to roll one’s eyes at the astroturfed school walkout to protest gun violence. The demands for “gun control,” whatever that means does not have any real-world relation to what happened. The massacre was a failure of law enforcement, due to the numerous instances Nicholas Cruz could have been taken into custody before that fatal day.
That is not to mention the cowardice of a particular sheriff’s deputy who otherwise might have truncated the carnage had he confronted Cruz instead of cowering outside the school.
The protests and the virtue signaling by the adult politicians who are behind them misses a much more severe problem that is taking far more lives of young people than School Shootings. According to the CDC, 4400 young people take their own lives every year as a direct result of Bullying, dwarfing the six adults and 35 children killed in school shootings since Sandy Hook in 2013.
Bullying — a much less sexy problem than school shootings
The nature of bullying has changed since the day's kids were shaken down for their lunch money or tripped in the hallways. A lot of it takes place on social media anonymously. The targets have no way to respond, unlike someone who is being physically confronted, though that is a problem that can lead to tragic consequences as well. Bullying victims are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school out of a sense of vulnerability.
Bullying does not lend itself to the response of mass protests such as recently occurred because it does not fit the agenda of some adults to use it as an excuse to confiscate firearms as a result of “common sense gun control.” Like the real causes of school shootings (i.e., mental illness as well as bullying) suicides as a result of bullying does not lend itself to passing laws or Street Theater.
A lot would depend on attitude changes and individual action.
A children’s crusade against bullying
What would a grassroots campaign against bullying look like? For one thing, such an effort would involve making such behavior less socially acceptable, less cool as it were. It includes some kids standing up for the victims, whether the bullying takes place in the hallway or on social media. For a bullying victim to know he or she is not alone and has friends who will support them would work wonders in cutting down the awful suicide statistics. Such actions would undoubtedly save more lives than being pawns for gun grabbing adults and making law-abiding gun owners angry for no reason.