Why oh why is there so much hate

I agree Doodledog bullying is subjective and takes many forms. As you say it can be used to shut people down and we do sadly see that on here; bullied into silence or false accusations of bullying to alienate and/or silence.

Murder as you say goes way beyond this though especially if the victim isn't known to their assailant.

Maybe we'll never really know what on earth induced two 15 year old's to commit such a violent act.

VioletSky

I don't know how I would ultimately define a bully... possibly as someone who deliberately seeks to hurt or threaten people who are vulnerable.

Disliking or disagreeing with someone isn't bullying... Unless of course the bully seeks to gang up with others on someone by encouraging them to pile on behind the scenes. Thus trying to put someone else in a vulnerable position.

Minority groups or those who need protected characteristics are already vulnerable. They are known to be vulnerable.

So I think maybe the answer is vulnerability, knowing what makes someone vulnerable and going after them using that makes a bully.

Maybe, procrastination thoughts

And to add to this

Children, children are vulnerable.

They are especially vulnerable to the views of adults around them.

If the views of adults were to encourage children and young people into hurting a vulnerable person then are they themselves also the victims of bullying?

Surely there is an argument to say they are.

Children should be brought up to be open minded, able to look at circumstances and situations as a whole, make their own decisions and not told what to think and feel by adults who become angry if their views aren't followed.

I don't know. It is tricky

Suggesting that bullies target the vulnerable risks putting ‘blame’ on the vulnerable. My experience is that the bully types use bullying to get what they want. Many of us can name a manager who bullied anyone who didn’t fall into line.

Play ground bullies are looking for status I suspect. No surprise they target others they perceive as unlikely to fight back, or to get lots of visible support in the play ground.
Primary schools do great work on helping children to understand what bullying is. Good behaviour, being a good friend, setting a good example are all rewarded in primary schools. Bullies can’t be unaware their behaviour is wrong.

Just a little bit of info about carrying weapons in the 50s and 60s.
Suit jackets could be designed with slim leather lined pockets in which to keep a knife.
The underside of the collar could be lined with leather so that a bicycle chain could be worn round the neck without damaging the suit.

Can you elaborate on how that puts blame on the vulnerable?

Surely the blame remains on the perpetrator, who uses a vulnerability or a perceived vulnerability?

Most of us agree that some people are vulnerable and work together to remove those vulnerabilities by protecting characteristics... for instance women. We include women in the equality act to protect those that are vulnerable. We work to close the gender pay gap, we work to protect women losing their jobs during pregnancy, we work to ensure women aren't sexually harassed in the workplace...

That's taking responsibility and preventing vulnerabilities making life difficult for people.

The reason that we do this is because people bully others for their vulnerability.pr perceived vulnerability.

And a vulnerability is something most people have in some way. That button others press to get a reaction or to place someone else as "less"

Most of us see others strengths, so we protect them from any kind of exploitation for their vulnerabilities.

It's human and decent to do that surely?

VioletSky - Children should be brought up to be open minded, able to look at circumstances and situations as a whole, make their own decisions and not told what to think and feel by adults who become angry if their views aren't followed.

Perhaps it’s the demise of family sitting around the dinner table and discussing life. People talking their kids.

The work done in primary schools is so important and most effective when reinforced at home. Victimising someone unlikely to fight back and being part of a gang are hall marks of a bully and the cowardice often associated with them.

Blades hidden in the peaks of caps too Ilovecheese. I've heard of provision being in made in jackets to hide knives but not hiding bicycle chains underneath a suit collar.

Sadly bullying sometimes plays out in families by controlling parents who never take responsibility or apologise and expect their children to fit perfectly into their mould and align perfectly with their views.

Schools do work hard to help children achieve their potential and support their social and emotional skills but other influences are strong

It's heartbreaking that a stabbing like this would ever happen

An adult being bullied by their partner, bullying by siblings and parents being bullied by their grown up children are also examples of how bullying plays out in families.

ExperiencedNotOld

VioletSky - Children should be brought up to be open minded, able to look at circumstances and situations as a whole, make their own decisions and not told what to think and feel by adults who become angry if their views aren't followed.

Perhaps it’s the demise of family sitting around the dinner table and discussing life. People talking their kids.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I have been thinking more about the difference having this knife has caused.

I had two bullies growing up, won't get into details but they were friends and made life awful. I have met both again at points as adults, one is the same horrible person but the other, after meeting on a night out and her immediately getting tearful and apologising, she is one of my best friends and we have a lot in common. Realistically all 3 of us had terrible home lifes but 2 of us made it out.

They hit me but they never had a knife.

These 2 15 year olds, there was hope for them to turn their lives around and be better people. There is always hope for most to turn their lives around and be better people.

But they had a knife. Of course there are other ways to kill someone but we don't know if they meant to wound or kill and having that knife... that could have been carried for defence, means their lives are forever changed and another young person is gone and many will be devastated by this.

We need to do more to prevent knife crime but I don't know what more

Yes I think that's a valid point, that kind of bullying has always gone on but yes throw a knife in the mix and the results are awful. Didn't Glasgow have considerable success reducing knife crime?

I will have a look, thank you

Thank goodness at least your country and mine have gun control otherwise things would be ten times worse. With us it tends to be young gangs of kids attacking with machetes for no reason. Everyone knows the problem but nothing gets done for fear of cries of racism. I am not talking about our First Nation people here, either.

Going back to the relevance of 'religion' and the point made by Galaxy, I've been giving this a lot of thought. Yes, dogmatic religion is behind a lot of violence, but that is not the same as spirituality - in fact it is often almost the opposite. And as for secular societies being less violent - how many are there in the world, how long for and what is the proof they are less violent? As far as I am aware Russia is non-religious, and it's behind the most dangerous global conflict for decades. Of course, the policies of the State are not the same subject as street crime. Is Russian society more peaceful and well-ordered? And are the more peaceable secular societies more affluent? Lots of other factors are relevant, perhaps. In this country we now have more poverty than I've seen in my 72 years, and that's likely to have an effect.

That is a very interesting postundines I don't know the answers to your questions but agree that poverty might be a factor perhaps because poverty reduces life chances and maybe young people feel they have less to lose because their future doesn't seem something to look forward to.

I think that poverty doesn't cause violence in itself, but disparity between rich and poor can, particularly when there is no obvious reason why some are rich and others have nothing. If you work really hard and still have nothing, and see others doing relatively little but having lots it must be difficult for some to understand why they shouldn't just take it from them.

Which has its roots in envy.

Yes, up to a point, but in injustice too.

I'm not saying it's right, or excusing it in any way, but that it's understandable. There was a lot of street crime in Victorian times, when we had similar levels of disparity between rich and poor.

but in injustice too yes that's true Doodledog.

Knife crime in Glasgow dropped by 65% between 2005 and 2017 .Overall crime is at its lowest for 42 years .
Cooperation between police and social services with input from schools all helped.
The SNP's named person was to cement this type of cooperation where all the institutions that dealt with a child on a regular basis could report any unusual behaviour to the named person who could then investigate it and try to find a solton.Of course the named person was dropped after an outcry in the media by people yelling big brother is here,when in fact most families wouldn't have even seen their named person,just the ones who had difficulties they couldn't cope with.

solution ,I must learn to proof read before posting