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Shortly after the shooting began in Newtown, Connecticut many Facebook advocates  suspected bullying as a root cause. But, it was clear that the media had learned an ethical lesson from erroneously making that link too quickly after Columbine. In fact, Education Week has found that for some time the Newtown School District did everything right to prevent bullying. Later, in response to false reports that Adam Lanza’s mother was a teacher at the elementary school, advocates were intuitively convinced that Lanza was exacting revenge for his mother against an egregious bully boss. By now we all know that Nancy Lanza had no relationship with the school.

Dr. Peter Ash, a forensic psychiatrist told CNN: “Killers tend to blame others, not themselves, for their problems. Mass killers tend to target people whom they imagine would torment them, or whom they blame for their distress.” Bullying has long been considered a risk factor for workplace shootings but it is not necessarily causal. Joe Scarborough, a conservative advocate of gun rights, spoke for many republicans who were deeply conflicted by the school massacre: “It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas… For the sake of my four children and yours, I choose life and I choose change.” But, not everyone is willing to put rhetoric aside. Yesterday the Workplace Bullying Institute highlighted the massacred teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School as martyrs and denounced the “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the incendiary profit-driven Michelle Rhee. None are school teachers. They pontificate from a fly-over altitude…” The WBI article ends  with a call to supporters: “To honor these martyrs, the next time the teacher haters rev up in 2013 with proposed legislation, join us in calling them exactly what they are. How should advocates honor the memory of those who died? We can put aside divisive agendas and be respectful in our discussions of the issues. Alicia Sparks shared an experience she had in a Psych Central article about a Dave Matthews concert she attended on the evening of the tragic massacre. “The crowd passionately sang along, and even though we went on with the night as planned, the lost lives of the Sandy Hook victims were on our minds, as they will forever be imprinted on history.” The lyrics say it all:

Don’t give up
I know you can see
all the world and the mess that we’re making
can’t give up
and hope God will intercede
come on back
imagine that
we could get it together

Stand up
for what we need to be
’cause crying won’t save or feed a hungry child
can’t lay down
wait for a miracle to change things
lift up your eyes
lift up your heart
singing

Mercy, will we overcome this?
one by one could we just turn it around?
maybe… carry on just a little bit longer
and I’ll try to give you what you need

Me and you and you and you
just wanna be free… yeah yeah
but you see
all the world is just as we have made it
and until we’ve got a new world
I got to say
love is not a whisper or a weakness
No, love is strong
now we gotta get it together
gotta get, gotta get, gotta get
til there is no reason
to fight

Mercy will we overcome this?
one by one, could we turn it around?
maybe… carry on just a little bit longer
and I’ll try to give you what you need

Mercy will we overcome this?
have we come too far to turn it around?
is it ask too much to be a little bit stronger?
’cause I want to give you what you need

Mercy, what will become of us?
one by one, could we turn it around?
maybe… carry on just a little bit longer
and I’ll try to give you what you need.

Related articles

• Michele Rhee’s right turn (salon.com)
• Sandy Hook Elrmentary: a special school (educationweek.com)
• Rejection, Bullying are Risk Factors Among Shooters (cnn.com)