White Teenage Males Appear to be the Problem in The United States
We need to address our real issues and work for a better future
I remember being 18. It was a tough year. It felt like a maximum amount of pressure with the least amount of power.
When I was 18, I took a year off school and worked. I had a miserable job and I lived at home. It was the low point of my life. I put my head down and got through it. I had girlfriends all through high school, but I didn’t go on a date that whole year. I didn’t spend a cent on entertainment, everything I earned went straight to a savings account.
I found a little purpose when I started running marathons. I needed a place to focus my energy. I’d been an honor student, but I felt like a complete loser. In truth, I had every single advantage it’s possible to have and I almost didn’t make it through that year.
The transition from public school to “adult” was too abrupt. I was totally unprepared for it. I’d put off thinking about it, but even if I had thought about it I don’t know if I could have prepared myself mentally.
As you look around the desolate landscape of modern America, you can see that 18 year old men are having a tough time. The solution is not some outdated appeal to a return to “traditional masculinity.” Instead, we should be working to make it easier for young people to understand how much they have to lose.
Every time you read an article bashing a younger generation, you’re seeing somebody plant the seed for the next mass shooting. Young people can’t handle the pressure. It’s not “mental illness,” it’s the way our society is designed. Young people are constantly bullied. When I was 18, I felt like society wanted me to self-destruct so they could point at me and laugh about it.
I don’t sympathize with mass shooters. I do, however, sympathize with human beings who are having a hard time to the point where they become suicidal. Three students committed suicide while I was in high school, and we had a graduating class of 106. That shouldn’t have happened, and the administration never faced any consequences.
Tragedies happen because good people don’t step in to help when a problem has been identified. We know what the problem is in the United States. We’re all guilty.
The concept of “rugged individualism” that the United States likes to idealize means turning your back on people who are struggling. What everyone in this country has to understand is that when you turn your back on people, you enable acts of violence. It’s not just teenagers that are mentally ill, our whole country is mentally ill.
Too many school shooters are young white men
We should all be able to agree that the prevalence of school shootings represent a complete failure of society.
We need to be responsible about this failure. We can’t collectively point our fingers at scapegoats and then forget about it. Doing nothing doesn’t work. We need to implement structural changes that can help abate the crisis.
Now. Not a week from now. Right now!
Lazy comments like “it’s video games” or “it’s mental illness” are offensive because they trivialize the reality of the unfair challenges our children face. These comments undermine any honest effort to identify the root causes.
As much as politicians talk about the issue of mass shootings, few of them actually cite the data that’s been collected. The United States almost always adopts a policy of entitled ignorance on any problem our society faces because the whole country has been conditioned to brag about the fact that they’re too dumb to understand basic mathematics.
The data tells us that if we could stop teen shootings, we would stop the majority of these kinds of tragedies. Let’s start there!
When we checked with [Sen. Chris] Murphy’s office, they pointed to a database project undertaken by the Washington Post that tracks every act of gunfire at a primary or secondary school during school hours since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. The Post found more than 200 incidents that met the project’s criteria.
When the Post analyzed these shootings, it found that more than two-thirds were committed by shooters under the age of 18. The analysis found that the median age for school shooters was 16 — Louis Jacobson
What’s making teenage men decide to go on a killing spree? It’s fairly obvious to see a connection between school shooters and radical right-wing propaganda.
“In most cases, these are men, young men, white men who often act out of a sense of entitlement,” [Texas psychologist Dr. Kristin] Anderson said…
Anderson said a majority of these shooters have either been bullied or dealt with domestic issues that led them to act on their frustrations. That combined with easy access to guns, leads to mass shootings, she said — James Grant
These shooters aren’t shy about detailing their deranged reasoning. They post their delusional beliefs on social media. They often post early enough that they could potentially be stopped if anyone paid attention.
An online screed linked to the 18-year-old man arrested for killing 10 people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket repeatedly referenced the racist and antisemitic “great replacement theory.”
The theory is white supremacist rhetoric amplified in recent years by some of the loudest voices in conservative media. Several recent shootings have been motivated by belief in a “great replacement,” experts say — Bill McCarthy
We know exactly what’s happening. Deranged Conservative beliefs which are propagated by seemingly limitless funds are turning angry white men into child murderers.
That’s America. That’s the disease our country has to confront.
A teenager doesn’t have a fully developed brain
Perhaps the most infuriating thing about all of this is that scientists know teenagers don’t have a fully developed brain.
It’s offensive that our society expects teenagers to make informed decisions when they’re not psychologically capable of making those decisions!
The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.
In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part.
In teens’ brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing — and not always at the same rate. That’s why when teens have overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling — Understanding the Teen Brain
Simply put, you can’t trust an individual who is less than 25 years old to have a gun. They aren’t going to make good decisions. Their brains haven’t developed to the point where they can make good decisions.
It’s biology.
Republicans like to make doctors answer dumb questions like “What is the definition of a woman?” Yet they refuse to recognize the realities of the limitations of a developing human mind.
Kids should not be allowed to have guns. Science has predicted exactly the result that we’re seeing in our country:
For decades, auto accidents have been the leading cause of death among children, but in 2020 guns were the №1 cause, researchers say.
Overall firearm-related deaths increased 13.5% between 2019 and 2020, but such fatalities for those 1 to 19 years old jumped nearly 30%, according to a research letter in New England Journal of Medicine — Dustin Jones
So, no, the solution is not “more guns.” The scapegoat is not “mental illness.”
The simple fact is that the brains of children haven’t developed enough where they can make adult decisions.
We know this!
We can’t allow children to make adult decisions that ruin the lives of everyone in a whole community.
This is common sense. This is why we don’t let kids drink until they turn 21. We know this restriction creates a safer, better society.
Honestly, teens shouldn’t be allowed to drive either
We should take note of the fact that so many of our children die in auto accidents. Auto accidents have been either the first or second leading cause of death for decades.
That’s not acceptable either, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t do something about it!
The risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among teens aged 16–19 than among any other age group. In fact, per mile driven, teen drivers in this age group are nearly three times as likely as drivers aged 20 or older to be in a fatal crash — Teen Drivers: Get the Facts
I’ll say it again, teenagers brains haven’t developed enough that you can trust them with something as dangerous as a gun or a car.
Look at the statistics!
It’s not unreasonable for a parent to look at the numbers and conclude it’s irresponsible to allow your children to drive before they reach age 20!
What’s our objective here? You can’t be “free” if you’re dead! Keep your kids alive and tell them they can’t drive.
It’s our job to protect our kids! It’s our society’s job to recognize unreasonable dangers and do something about them. Look at the leading causes of death! This isn’t a secret! The statistics are readily available. We know exactly what’s going on and we refuse to do anything about it.
No, teenagers aren’t the problem, idiotic adults who refuse to face reality are the problem
The hard truth is that children are not to blame for any of this.
Adults are to blame. We make the rules. We deny the facts.
Our kids are being slaughtered by our idiotic, uniformed decisions and we do nothing.
As for me, I’d like to see my children live to a ripe old age. I consider it my job to do everything within my power to make sure they get there. I’m supposed to protect them.
Idiot adults who refuse to recognize statistical facts are the ones responsible for the unacceptably high rate at which our children are slaughtered.
We can’t put the onus on our children to disregard the limitations of biological development. That’s an offensively irresponsible attitude to adopt. Instead, we must be rational about constructing a society that doesn’t set kids up for failure.
We’ve got to protect our children. There shouldn’t be anything controversial about that statement. Look at what’s killing them! We have to do better. These tragedies could be avoided if we’d just act responsibly and use our common sense.
Don’t blame the kids. It’s the adults who have failed.