The Wrong Smoking Gun

I read a short piece in the “New York Times” today (10 -1–2025) about how one school attempted to prevent a future shooting by beginning to work with a student who “pointed his finger like a gun and told the kids who bullied him: ‘I hope you all die.’” Some felt this was an invasion of the student’s rights, even his right to have dark thoughts. The rational behind this intervention was likened to preventing cancer by intervening to stop smoking.

Hopefully, the intervention with this student would be helpful not punitive, and one hopes successful, but the smoking analogy troubles me. The piece didn’t mention anything about confronting the students who were bullying him. Rejection, ridicule, and isolation in the form of bullying equate more accurately to “smoking” here. If we were to drill down even further, we would find ourselves asking what causes this type of toxic humanity. (Notice I did not say “toxic masculinity” — bullying is not limited to male students.) Why do students bully others? Why is it so often tolerated? Why are the victims of bullying often treated like part of the problem or told to toughen up or make nice?

In our society we often respond to difficult issues by focusing on the individuals affected by negative circumstances instead of addressing those circumstances. We get angry or disgusted by those living on the street, allowing ourselves to be convinced there is something wrong with these individuals instead of assessing the systems that have let them down. We turn our noses up at substance abusers and neglect to discern what they are trying to escape.

We need to start thinking more deeply, to identify the systems that aren’t working before we do even more damage to individuals and to our country as a whole.

Cinse Bonino

2025

[Image: graffiti, Burlington, VT, 2012]