School Shooting in KY

[Gman]

I wasn't the smallest kid in school. I was really fit with broad shoulders (competitive swimming since 4-years old can do that), but I was really shy and meek.

I was taught not to fight and to turn the other cheek. I was raised with the understanding "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me." One of my parents directives was to never start a fight. It's not the Christian thing to do. If I was ever in a fight, the first questions I'd be asked were, "Who started it?" and "Who threw the first punch?" I got bullied, because I wouldn't respond to their taunts, so they felt they could push me around.

I never started a fight, but I ended every one that I was in. Ended up breaking my hand, twice. (Heads are hard, but they have a hole in the front of them that spews words making them such an attractive target.)

Yet, I never got aggressive toward anyone that wasn't trying to physically harm me or someone I cared about. I also never misdirected my anger and randomly shot my classmates at school.

Pecking orders are in the DNA of pretty much all animals, often determining the opportunity to reproduce for those at the top of the order. As much as we want to *think* that our society is "too advanced" for such behavior, it will happen.

Raising snowflakes, the everyone gets a trophy mentality, and that feelings are the the most important thing to human development/survival are misguided. Life is tough. Competition is good. Words are not actions.

ETA: COGIRL303, I simply can't fathom how you can relate "bullying" to the Nazi Holocaust.