To me there's a big difference between truly ribbing your true friends and bullying and most everyone knows the difference so I don't like the comparison at all.
I also don't think kids are "overly sensitive". I think we are sometimes more aware and they are usually better at expressing the effects of their experiences. At least some people in society have learned that bullying does not toughen kids up. Leadership and guidance do that. Bullying tears them down. Many people recognize that but others do not. I wish we could make more progress in that area. Bullying is no more good at toughening a kid up than workplace harassment is in making one a more productive employee.
I think that if it were acceptable today that the vast majority of kids could bring a .22 rifle to school and they would do no harm. However, many students, parents, and school employees would not feel safe - and considering recent events that is not surprising.
We are more aware, yes, but school shootings were exceeding rare back in the day and most were related to one target, robbery, or accidental.
I don't know if this was the incident that did in rifle teams, but in 1974 this happened (wiki was just the top link - if anyone has information that any of this is untrue please share):
en.wikipedia.org
December 30, 1974 | Olean, New York | 3 (including a pregnant woman) | 11 | Olean High School shooting: During a two-and-a-half-hour siege, 17-year-old honor student Anthony Barbaro, the best on his rifle team, killed three adults, one pregnant, in and around his high school and wounded eleven others.[186][187] He shot from the windows at the street and neighborhood. The school was closed for the Christmas holiday.[188] Barbaro committed suicide in prison before he could stand trial. |
It seems that beginning in the 1960's and up until Columbine that there were maybe 1 or 2 or at most a few mass school shootings and many more not related to schools.
Now we are having one at least every other year and victims are chosen randomly.
But then way back we did have segregation and lynchings and so on and so forth.
The crappiness of society has changed and in some ways is worse.
We are probably also more aware of it.