As I studied the biographical sketches of the mass shooters, I discovered that it really isn't about the guns, but the early traumatic experiences in their lives. We must do a better job asking the right questions.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. ... Psalm 23

Jesse Osborne, the teenager who pleaded guilty to the Townville Elementary School shooting of 2016, suffered abuse at the hands of the father he killed, according to testimony Wednesday from the teen's older half-brother. Ryan Brock, whose mother, Tiffney Osborne, is also Jesse's mother, testified about Jesse's home life at a sentencing hearing for the teen. Brock said Jeffrey Osborne, Jesse's father, physically and emotionally abused Jesse. https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/south-carolina/2019/11/13/townville-school-shooter-jesse-osborne-sentencing-hearing-second-day-jacob-hall-anderson-county-sc/2522120001/

Ryan Brock said he had to work through his own feelings of guilt about what happened to Jesse and how the elementary school shooting happened after Brock, who is 22, left home and moved to Texas.

 "Jesse relied on me a lot to look after him and make sure he was OK, and after I left, that was gone for him," Brock said.

Martin testified that Osborne had flashbacks of bullying that he had experienced at school and flashbacks of "trauma he had received at the hands of his father," who was "verbally and physically abusive."

Brock said that Jeffrey Osborne withheld food from Jesse to punish him.
Osborne was expelled from West Oak Middle School for bringing a hatchet and a machete there about six months before the Townville shooting.

In the recent school shooting in Santa Clarita, we know that Nicholas Berhow came from a troubled home. His early life was steller with a commitment to the Boy Scouts, hunting with his dad, and earning top marks in school. But there were signs of trouble in the home. The suspect’s father, Mark Berhow, was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of attempted battery on a spouse, according to jail records. But citing insufficient evidence, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file two misdemeanor charges against him — one misdemeanor count each of violation of a domestic relations court order and battery on a spouse or girlfriend. 

Another report revealed his dad died in December 2017 from a heart attack and according to the New York Post he battled chronic alcoholism that contributed to his heart attack. One report suggested that Nicholas found his deceased father in the living room of the home they lived in. Previous to the arrest, his wife filed for full custody of their son. Another report mentioned that his dad would make his own bullets. His son, Nicholas, carried one hollowed bullet in memory of his dad.

Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter also came from a troubled past. Friends and family members say he grew up in a loving home, but tragedy struck twice with the death of his father when he was a young child, and then the death of his mother just a few months before the school shootings. Different news accounts suggest that there many red flags that were missed and had someone picked up on the clues this school shooting might have been avoided.

A gunman, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fires from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on a crowd of 30,000 gathered on the Las Vegas Strip for the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival. At least 58 people were killed and more than 515 injured. What is important to know about this shooter is that in 1960, when Stephen Paddock was 7, F.B.I. agents showed up at his family’s tidy white ranch house in the hills outside Tucson, Arizona, stunning the neighbors and even the local sheriff. No one could fathom that Pat Paddock, the big, jolly father of four young boys who owned a small business in town and was a special deputy at the sheriff’s office, was really Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, a serial bank robber with a rap sheet that stretched back to Chicago.

I could go on and on with other biographical sketches of school shootings, but that would be too much for one blog. What I discovered was it isn't about the guns, but the combination of traumatic experiences in the lives of young people.  Imagine you are a young child and you encountered the sudden death of a parent and now you have to go to the same school where you face triggers every time you see a happy young person giving their parent a hug the moment they are dropped off while you are in a pain remembering the parent you once had. Imagine how scared you are living in a world that no longer feels safe to you. 

 The reality is we have to stop thinking that kids are resilient and think they will recover on their own without help.  We must do a better job asking the right questions to our young people if we truly want to help them recover from traumatic experiences in their lives 

In Summary, it isn't about the guns, but it is about the culmination of the emotional and traumatic experiences that leave our young people bewildered and at a loss at how to recover from those events. As the Ace's study bares out, young people who struggle with unresolved pain associated with trauma will have a harder time in school while earning poorer grades and are at increased risk for significant chronic health issues.  As a Christian, I know from my life that listening to our children and consistently worshipping together as a family is the start of the healing process. 

  It is in God's book that we see a living and breathing Savior who truly understands us and wants to walk us through this pain.