"...if I wasn't of sound mind, I would have pumped shotgun lead into the people who I wish were held accountable for their actions in picking on me, but alas, weren't."

Therein lies one problem. I was like that, too. If I had been less mentally stable, I probably would have gone berserk on the people that have fucked w/ me all my life. The difficulty lies in the fact that there are too many kids out there being picked on who are not stable enough to realize that shooting up their school is a bad thing.

I caught the ass end of the "Great Nerd Wars" of the 80s & early 90s. Many of my friends in the NYC Tri-State Metro Area were nerds, geeks, freaks, etc. which is to say they weren't football/soccer/lacrosse players or cheerleaders, therefore they were targets. Many a time I was forced to defend them from said khaki eclipse, so much so that I finally decided one day to rig my overcoat up with a butterfly clip to carry my katana with.

Less than a week later, I was in Elmsford, NY, with some friends. We weren't doing anything, just keeping to ourselves. It was a Saturday; we were hanging out in the local shopping district. A group of about 5 or 6 offensive linemen spotted us & decided that we were suddenly persona non grata in a public place. They didn't know me, but they knew Marlo Weiss; she dressed like a goth. They knew Mike Mentzer; he was gay. They knew Christy Nolan and Wendy Karras; they were lovers. They knew Rob Harring and Sam Kentner; they played AD&D. None conformed. None played sports, took part in clubs, or "played the party line." They were, in effect, free thinkers, unburdened by the yokes of societal classification.

They came over as a group, moving in unison, looking just as good together as the Hitler Youth did when they all raised their arms at once. They verbally harangued us. They attempted to publically embarrass us. Nothing worked. Eventually, we got up and moved to another area. They followed us, picked up random objects and hurled them at us. Finally, one of them ran up, grabbed Sam--who was fairly small in stature--picked him up, & shoved him head first into a fairly full trashcan. That was it for me. I lost it. I told him in no uncertain terms to remove my friend and to apologize to him.

Let's set the picture here: I'm 5' 3" at the time, maybe 150, 160 pounds. My opponent was a goot foot taller than me, bulkier, and perhaps 100 or 120 pounds heavier than me. He trained and was muscular; I was scrawny.

Needless to say he laughed at my suggestion, making some snide remark to his buddies about how I was standing up to him; this made them guffaw loudly.

Without thinking, with the quickest flash, I reached in, pulled out the katana, & had the point up in his face. To this day, I rememebr the look of disbelief mixed with fear and hatred in his eyes. I calmly restated my position: "You may be bigger than me, but I'm faster and I'm ARMED. I asked you to remove him. Now I'm TELLING you. DO it." He hesitated, tried to stammer out some insult or excuse. "Not GOOD enough! MOVE!"

And I sliced him across his upper right arm, from shoulder to a point just inboard of the elbow. It wasn't deep, wasn't even serious. But it slit his jacket, his shirt, and drew enough blood to sting. I remember having the hardest look on my face as I held up the blade to his face, the tip of it a scant few inches away from his eyes, dripping lightly with a few blobs of his blood.

I remember having the coldest tone in my voice as I said, "That was a mere taste. Remove him NOW, NEVER harass him, me, or ANY of us....or in the name of all that is holy, I will hunt you down to the very ends of the earth and make you bleed until you can bleed no more, until you have died knowing the physical equivalent of all the pain, suffering, and anguish you have inflicted on these people over the years. And you will NOT tell the police, your parents, or speak of this to anyone else. If you do, I WILL find out, I WILL act upon it, and it will be MOST unpleasant. Do I make myself comPLETEly understood?"

He simply nodded, his face the same grey-white as ash; his cohorts had similarly drained features. This neanderthal removed my friend from the trash, cleaned him off, and proceeded to run off with his cronies.

My friends thanked me and were amazed at what had transpired that day. For me, it scared me, because right then, I WOULD have killed him, WOULD have gladly taken his life for a perceived slight, for a promise made to honor and protect. Since that day, I've toned that urge down, made sure that I could never do that again unless absolutely necessary...and I only make that promise of protection to those I truly care about. I also keep the butterfly clip sewn into the liner of my jacket as a reminder that some things aren't worth the price.

So yeah...I know where this kid came from, and the Columbine kids, and all the others. But unlike them, I was taught to have a sense of honor, a sense of loyalty, a sense of respect. These are not things one learns from teachers at school nor parents at home. They are lessons learned by the hardships of life.

These kids failed. They shall be judged for their actions, made to take responsibilty for them as should be. But American society as a whole needs to sit back and not try to find an excuse why, not try to find a convenient scapegoat, but instead look at the very conceptual fiber of our lives.

For the answer lies therein.

I myself was a victim of bullies for three years of my school life. Why? Because I was actually there to work and get an education. The schools much trumpeted anti-bullying policy didn't work, especially since I had reported several incidents to teachers. One rainy day, the guy started on me again but this time I punched him in the face and clearly hurt him - no weapons necessary. He never picked on me again. There were times when I would have gladly killed him, and given the access to weaponry, I probably would have. It was however not necessary.

Bullies get off on the sense of power they think they have, but if you break this myth they seem to have about their own power, they'll stop. If I did this in the States though, the guy would probably have returned with some kind of gun and killed me so it is a different situation I admit and needs a different solution. The easy access to guns however doesn't help, especially when if someone pisses you off, you can just grab a gun and shoot them.

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The Worlds Ten Greatest 'Fucks' #3

What a stupid place to plant a fucking tree - Marc Bolan

But Orion's also right. Hitting the bully over here will, 9 times out of 10, stop the bullying. Or at least tone it down considerably. It certainly wouldn't lead to the bully finding out where you live, knocking on your door, and then pumping you full of lead.

Unless you're Phil Mitchell, I suppose. But he was asking for it.

That's how it is. They get the joy and pleasure of breaking you physically and emotionally, so when you can no longer resist, you are nothing more than their mere slave.

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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."

Until I started kicking them between the legs.

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"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?" - Abraham Lincoln

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair." - Arnold Toynbee

"Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity." - Anonymous

For our Canadian friends -- have you heard about this 16 year old boy who wrote a story for a drama class in which the protagonist entered the school with explosives, planning on exploding his tormentors? He was arrested, expelled from school, jailed for a month, and goes on trial in a few weeks. Interesting story, and it sort of applies here (that in: identifying trouble students early).

Fascinating society we live in.

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"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?" - Abraham Lincoln

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair." - Arnold Toynbee

"Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity." - Anonymous

Surf on over to CNN.com. There was another shooting -- an 8th grade girl shot another 8th grade girl at a Catholic school in Pennsylvannia.

I think that answers an earlier question by you, Omega.

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"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?" - Abraham Lincoln

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair." - Arnold Toynbee

"Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity." - Anonymous

This isn't to say I haven't been picked on. I visit a Star Trek messageboard. I think everyone here has. Everyone gets picked on. Even the Quarterback, or the Cheerleaders, or whatever Stereotypical bully-of-the-week you'd like to insert.

I was picked on. These two big Hockey dudes apparently felt it necessary to inform me that I had - to my surprise - changed my sexual orientation, among other things. It pissed me off.

Did I think to kill them? No.

They called me 'gay'. How the fuck does that make one murderous? If someone beats you up, and you want to actually, physically, end their life, go to a fucking shrink, asshole.

Anyway, these two guys ended up being on my Hockey team the next year. First game of the season, I said "Look, this isn't gonna fucking work if we hate each other. We both wanna play, so if we all just shut the fuck up, we can play, and none of this other shit will affect us none." Guess what? It worked. The relationship was Neutral, but not adversely affective to my mental capacity. I didn't once think of taping a swicthblade to my shinguard, or anything else as inventive as Shik's forbidden Ninja routine. (For Which, the Football dudes should have, and were entitled to have pressed charges.)

What was that? I solved a problem without violence? Yeah, that's right. I guess us Foreigners are wierd that way. Disliking the thought of killing stupid adolescents because they're stupid adolescents.

When I was like 8, and I first heard (and saw) Pearl Jam's video for Jeremy, I was fairly disturbed that people would kill other people at school. It seems that video was simply an extension of America's subconsious desires.

People take bullying way too seriously. Learn Judo. Bully back. Or stop hanging around people who say things like "The Host of the unholy netherworld is pleased." Things like that get you bullied. By association it seems.

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"I WANT A POST VOY SERIES STAR TREK ORIGINAL MESSAGE WAS LOOKING FORWARD NOT LOOKING BACK."

-Darkstar

quote:

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One thing I'd be interested to know: do such shootings ever occur at private schools?

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quote:

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Pennsylvania girl arrested in classmate's shooting

March 7, 2001
Web posted at: 6:00 p.m. EST (2300 GMT)

WILLIAMSPORT, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- An eighth-grade girl was wounded and a classmate arrested Wednesday in the latest outbreak of gunfire at a U.S. school.

Authorities said the shooting occurred during lunch at Bishop Neumann Junior-Senior High School, a Roman Catholic school in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. A police spokesman said the shooting stemmed from a long-standing dispute between the suspect and victim.

"This is not a random act of violence, and as far as I understand there are no other targets for this violence," Officer David Ritter said.

Maria Orzel, a spokeswoman for the diocese of Scranton, said school authorities approached the suspect and convinced her to surrender.

The victim, a 13-year-old girl, was in stable condition at a hospital in nearby Danville after being shot once in the right shoulder, Geisinger Medical Center spokesman Max Meng said.

The 14-year-old suspect was being questioned and would be taken to a juvenile detention center, authorities said. She was expected to face juvenile court charges of attempted homicide.

Williamsport is about 180 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The school lists an enrollment of 231 students.

After the shooting, all were taken to the school's auditorium and patted down by police in a search for weapons, Lycoming County District Attorney Thomas Marino said. Students were later taken to a nearby school and questioned, he said.

Classes have been canceled for Thursday but will resume Friday with counselors available for the students, Orzel said.

The incident comes two days after a shooting at a high school in Santee, California, a suburb of San Diego. Two students died and 13 people were wounded in that incident. A hearing for the 15-year-old freshman boy arrested in that incident was postponed until March 26 at the request of defense lawyers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
****
"The candidate who slimed John McCain in the primaries and smeared Al Gore in the general election is now the president who pledges to elevate the nation's tone and bring civility to our discorse. Kind of like Michael Corleone brought peace to the mob by killing the heads of the other four families."
--Paul Begala, Is Our Children Learning?

After that event, I wrote up thousands of lines of mental code to prevent such actions from ever happening again unless a VERY specific set of events unfolded. I scared myself into inaction.

As for the Khaki Eclipse, 3 went to jail for raping the sister of one of my friends.

And in response to an earlier post, I was a small kid too. I was shorter than my mother up until the age of 16, and she's 5 feet 2 inches tall. I was pretty skinny at that time aswell. I suppose I just got lucky because the bully although much bigger than me was a coward. He realised he'd have a fight on his hands from that day on, and decided he didn't want to pursue it any further.

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The Worlds Ten Greatest 'Fucks' #3

What a stupid place to plant a fucking tree - Marc Bolan

Self-control and self-discipline, that's what it's all about. Yes, the temptation to cut loose and give these neanderthals just what for is always there, isn't it? But the control. That's what we have that they don't.

Our ability NOT to act on our base desires is what separates us from the lower life forms.

Understanding that those who continue to act on their base desires (ie. bullies, etc.) are lower life forms can give one a legitimate sense of superiority.

I look at what has become of the people who used to give me a hard time at school. I have had a more successful life than any of them, and I'm not even that well off. One got himself killed. One got himself arrested. One got himself crippled, and two others... well, they best they're gonna do is gas station attendant.

Still, sometimes I think the world needs a few more Frank Castles.