There have always been bullies and always will be. I am afraid you are right, that the only way to deal with them is to confront them and fight them if need be. Most bullies back down from fights. I was bullied in the 7th grade by this girl. Every day she banged into me, scattered my books, and said things. One day she really smashed into my back, and it hurt. I knew I was not going to take this anymore and I also knew that I would rather she assaulted me than deal daily with the abuse. My mother told me a story about when she was young and a girl bothered her. My mother who may have been all of five feet tall, told the girl that she would meet her at the flag pole, the bully never showed. In my case, I turned around lifted my umbrella into the air and screamed enough! She was so shocked that I defended myself that she backed down and even began saying hello to me. The point is we are not teaching children to confront adversity and that is a tragedy in itself.
I’d agree with you except things have changed. Bullies have always had their posses or gangs, or whatever. But they’d stand on the sidelines while their leader tried to teach you a lesson. Doesn’t seem to work that way anymore. You fight one of them, you fight all of them.
The only way I can think of to deal with it would be ambush their leader while he’s alone and hurt him bad enough that he loses credibility. And then, if you’re ID’d, you go to jail...