The nation was shocked when news broke that there was yet another school shooting, this time in Ohio. A male student by the name of TJ Lane, who schoolmates say was a loner with sad eyes, opened fire on students as they waited in the cafeteria to board a bus. But what drove another one of our kids to commit murder? News sources now say that the scrawny teenager lived with his grandmother because his father was in and out of prison for various crimes which TJ was exposed to. TJ was also the victim of relentless bullying and this is event, is what many are dubbing his revenge. But should kids like TJ take all the blame for their actions or should schools also be held accountable for not taking a more aggressive approach to bullying?
Victims of bullying act out in very divergent ways, sometimes with destructive and devastating consequences. Some bullied victims are not like suspected Chardon, Ohio, high school shooter T.J. Lane. Some take the quiet but horrific way out: they will grab a belt like what 10-year-old Jasmine McClain of Chardburn, N.C., did, when she hanged herself from the ceiling, leaving her mother to find her lifeless body because she could not take even one more day of being mentally battered and bruised by her classmates. Then there are those like T.J. Lane — and the reported bullying victims of Columbine, Colo. — who are so full of unfathomable rage and hatred that they want to inflict the most egregious levels of pain and retribution upon his perceived tormentors. Reports are now coming in from this upscale, suburban bedroom community outside of Cleveland that Lane, allegedly a longtime victim of bullying and considered a tormented outcast, walked into Chardon High School with a loaded handgun and shot five people, two fatally, before being apprehended.[Rollingout]
