The biggest news story of recent weeks is the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Twenty-year-old Thomas Crooks only grazed his ear, but he did, sadly, kill another man and critically injure two others. As we have come to expect when hearing news of mass shootings, this perpetrator is reported to have been a victim of bullying.

The massive campaign to rid schools and society of bullies is now fully a quarter of a century old. It was launched in response to the Columbine High School massacre of 20 April 1999, which was committed by two young men who presented themselves as victims of bullying. Researchers who studied previous school shootings discovered that the majority of perpetrators were victims of bullying.

It had been known even longer that many kids who die by suicide do so to escape the misery of being bullied.

People who are victimised for a long time often develop a dark side, fed by years of degradation by their peers that drives them to seek power, revenge, and possibly notoriety. In extreme cases, they may also have a suicidal motive, expecting to be put out of their misery by law enforcement officers responding to their deadly action.

In order to prevent such tragedies from recurring, the psychological and educational establishments declared a war against bullying with the expectation that it would prevent people from being victimised, and thereby obviating any need to engage in violence. It was also expected that anti-bullying education would result in a generally more peaceful society.

What we know thus far of Trump's would-be assassin

At the time of this writing, Thomas Crook's specific motives for shooting Trump were not yet known, and we may never know them. One thing we do know, though, is that both his parents were licensed mental health counsellors. It is likely they knew more about him and his problems, including the bullying, than anyone else.

We should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they cared about him, strove to be good, enlightened parents, and tried to coach him for social success. Maybe they even sent him to the school counsellor or an outside private therapist for help.

The failure of anti-bullying education

Nevertheless, any such efforts, whether by Thomas's parents, school, or mental health providers he may have seen, obviously failed in a big way. This should not surprise us. It is an unfortunate truth that most psychological professionals do not have a reliable way to get kids to stop being bullied. After 25 years and the all-too-frequent news of fatal shootings, it's time to acknowledge that anti-bullyism has not been working.

This writer has warned all along that it can't possibly work — that the way we go about addressing bullying will promote a victim mentality and actually cause more harm than good. An earlier article presents in detail possible reasons for the failure of anti-bullying interventions.

A major reason for anti-bullyism's failure is its most basic message: that we have a right to a life without being bullied, and if we are being bullied, it is only the fault of the bully.