Shootings reflect how America's young men are being radicalized online | Opinion

The nation is grappling to understand what led a 20-year-old man born to two licensed professional counselors in a middle-class Pennsylvania suburb to shoot a former president. But what happened to Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a week ago has happened in classrooms across America for the past quarter-century.

In the post-Columbine generation, where nearly 400,000 students have experienced gun violence at school, at least 205 children, educators and other people have been killed and 464 have been injured, according to The Washington Post. Unlike Trump, these victims didn't have Secret Service protection.

I am grateful that this condemnable act of political violence didn't become something worse, and my thoughts are with all victims' families. For our nation to heal, though, we must realize that what happened July 13 reflects a national trend: A concerning number of America's young men are being radicalized to idolize and commit acts of extreme violence.

The FBI has not yet revealed an official motive for Thomas Michael Crooks, but what former classmates have revealed about him matches the profile of many school shooters: Crooks was a loner, often bullied and had an interest in guns. From Parkland to Uvalde, investigations of teen shooters reveal that shooters had warning signs of radicalization, such as extremist social media posts online, that went undetected. While the profile of Trump's shooter still is largely a mystery, is it possible that he, too, had warning signs that went ignored?

The Columbine effect

On April 20, 1999, two teenagers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killed 12 students using semi-automatic weapons.

Twenty-five years later, Mother Jones reports there have been "more than 100 plots and attacks influenced by the 1999 shooting."

Columbine changed how Generation Z, spanning 1997 to 2012, would experience school.

Born in 2003, I grew up with annual active shooter drills, where we would have to barricade our classroom doors with desks and talk with our teachers about what classroom items we could throw to stop a shooter. From Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, 413 school shootings have occurred since Columbine, with the average shooter being male, the median age being 16 and the suspected motivation being a desire for infamy.

JD Vance needs to look at himself,his party's rhetoric before blaming Democrats | Letters

A 16-year-old doesn’t begin joining Columbine fan clubs overnight. Radicalization pipelines are gradual, and teenagers can be recruited by white supremacists in places as innocuous as a Discord server for their favorite video game.

"Different online groups that attempt to attract and radicalize new members may target specific men, but all races, ages, and genders are vulnerable to online radicalization for any cause," said Sarah Daly, a criminologist who specializes in studying mass violence and radicalization. "However, young white men may be a specific target group, as they may be specifically susceptible to the message that they are not being given (or losing) benefits or advantages to which they believe they are entitled."

Among gamers under 18, 1 in 6 say they have seen content online that suggests the white race is superior or that other races should be eliminated, an NYU report revealed.

One in six gamers under 18 say they have seen content online that suggests the white race is superior or that other races should be eliminated, an NYU report revealed.

Without their brains fully developed, kids who spend excessive time online on sites that recommend radical content can have their worldview completely rewired by extremist communities online.

Vance will hurt Trump's reelectionchances. Ohio junior senator isn't ready to be VP.

Eighteen-year-old Payton Gendron was drawn to popular imageboard site 4chan in March 2020 because of "boredom," he said in an interview with The Guardian. Two years later, he fatally shot 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

How to identify warning signs in radicalization

America's male teenagers are in crisis: Boys are falling behind in school, enrolling in college at lower rates, struggling to form relationships and experiencing suicidal ideation. In a culture that discourages men to talk about their feelings, isolated teenagers can find a warm welcome in alt-right and incel communities online, who tell them their struggles are entirely the fault of women and racial or religious minorities.

Right now, our nation has an opportunity to reject a status quo where the radicalization of young, white males has been continually dismissed as one-off tragedies. What happened at the Trump rally was a horrible act of political violence, and we must make every effort to prevent any young person from idolizing or copying the shooter.

Radicalization can happen to anyone, and if a child is spending excessive time online, avoiding people, talking in an "us vs. them" mentality or suddenly caring about political issues, parents should check in, said Daly. As many teenagers are struggling post-pandemic, teachers, parents and friends need to be aware of warning signs and help at-risk youth so they don't feel drawn to incels and white supremacists.

"Teenage boys may benefit from finding other in-person outlets and interests to find healthy friendships, such as clubs or gaming groups," said Daly. Connecting boys with mental health treatment and limiting screen time can also be helpful interventions.

More change needs to happen, but before we start any sort of conversation about gun laws or social media regulations, our nation needs to realize that there is a silent crisis among America's teenagers. To prevent political violence, we must prevent those at-risk from being radicalized to support it in the first place.

Meredith Perkins is an intern on the Opinion team at the Enquirer and currently attends Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, studying English and diplomacy. She is a native of Independence, Ky.