To the editor:

As the demonstrations fade and those involved focus on “punishing” those who don’t adhere to their point of view, where is the movement to change the behaviors that lead young people to acts of violence against their peers?

We read, almost daily, of instances of both physical and online bullying, the disparaging of classmates, the driving to despair of young people by their peers. We’ve seen “town hall” discussions that blame the means, make ‘racist’ claims, and disparage genders, but where is the attention and drive to curb the group pressures and social media activity that create the disillusioned, those isolated individuals who feel that violent outburst is the only way to get back at their tormentors, the beat-down souls who see suicide as their only option? Where is the admission that the means is only a vehicle, not the cause, that the very social groups that now push for “change” are part and parcel of the problem? It may be a “truism” that males are most likely to use violence to resolve their conflict, but the attacks of females on their gender are equally as devastating

Raise the minimum age, restrict the sale of various weapons, lock up our schools; those who are driven to those feelings will find a way, another means. Teens aren’t to smoke, drink, use drugs, smoke weed. But they do, and quite readily. Until entire generations choose to move away from the cliquish, bullying behaviors that permeate their own lives and become more accepting and caring of others, there will always be the disconnected youth looking to strike out at those they feel have driven them away.