Speaking of violence in schools

[microdmitry]

Here's a quote:

I would write short stories, and they’re probably horribly written, about blowing up my school and murdering all the teachers. Which I would show to this English teacher who I was friends with, my one ally at this school. And he would go, "Okay, don’t show this to your real English teacher. You know, because you can’t say '****' and hand it in as an essay at this school." I went to a pretty uptight all boys school. But he said, "Show me this stuff." And, "I like that you’re writing creatively. Keep this up. Just don’t show it to your 'teacher-teacher' because you’ll get in trouble."

Guess who the guy is.

[GilkyBear]

Henry Rollins

[microdmitry]

That's right. He came out fine, didn't he? Didn't kill anyone, great speaker, political activist. In fact if he was running for a public office and I could vote, I'd vote for the guy.

[Hikey Mikey]

Okay, so one valid counter-example does what?

Of course, it's possible for a sane human being to have violent fantasies that they will never put into action. Stephen King wrote a story about school violence and he is clearly able to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

But the fact remains that most people who do act out in violence are suffering from a mental illness and that suffering manifests itself in some alarming way. These have included writing about the attack and saying ominous things to people like "don't come to school tomorrow, something bad is going to happen." Whether we consider them cries for help or evil threats, they are warning signs that should be investigated.

[GilkyBear]

Yeah...these threads never end well...