You have certainly heard of the school shooting in Georgia by now. This event has revived the argument of gun rights verses gun control.  I’m not going to discuss whether or not we need stricter gun laws. I will leave that to other blogs. I do want to express my belief that the causes of school shootings are more than just the availability of guns. 

We have legions of disturbed adolescents in our schools. One in three adolescents received mental health treatment in 2023. Women with mental health issues generally internalize them while men tend to act out.  The overwhelming majority of young men in our society will not act out through mass murder, but even they will still act out in their own ways. That’s one of the reasons studies say the suicide rate for males is three times higher than females.  

Sadly, many of these adolescent males suffer in silence. They remain in the shadows, their problems unrecognized. People exasperate their condition by ignoring them.  Then, when one of them snaps and goes on a killing rampage, we suddenly begin asking questions. Why did he do this?  Why didn’t we find out sooner? What could we have done to have prevented this? Only it’s too late. Children are already dead. 

The time to address these disturbed young men is before they end up killing our children. We need to recognize there are social stigmas against young men with mental problems that prevent them from reaching out for help. Teenagers are not yet ready to parent themselves. They need adults to identify and treat these young men before something tragic happens.