See Rule #5
You know, it's odd. There has been access to firearms in the US for over 200 years and yet it's only in the past 20 years or so that we have started seeing such incidents take place. Make that 50 years for the rare "crime spree" like from In Cold Blood.
Since a piece of steel with some wood doesn't have any psychoactive powers over someone's free will, perhaps there is something at work in society beyond guns? No gun, and the same guy is instead bringing those girls a batch of cupcakes today I suppose.
Frankly, I can honestly see more of a link to popular culture for these types of things, including television and video games. The gun situation has remained the same, HS social pressures have hardly changed I suppose -- angst, social outsiders and the A-list. "Children can be cruel..." is not a new saying. What has changed has been the glorification of mass violence and using mass violence as revenge.
Take the action hero movie where the hero's family is killed in the first 15 minutes and 1.5 hours and 100 bad guy bodies later he's snuggling with the hot new love interest -- burning exploded building in the background -- dead baddie hoincho at his feet with all of his problems behind him. Now take the glorification of violence for the already predisposed and substitute the family-killing gangland criminals for kids that made fun of me or rejected me; add the chance to take part in celebrity culture through infamy by going out with a bang and here's what we get.
Shootings like this are a symptom of a sick culture, at some levels and extremes. Guns are a tool. Make the tool go away, if you remotely can, and the sickness remains.
We accept the bad with the good where the 1st Amendment is concerend, just like we do in so many areas. I support this, warts and all. Look at how many people the "Turner Diaries" helped kill. We realize that the diesel fuel and fertilizer didn't make the federal building explode on its own, nor the Turner Diaries which clearly and directly influenced McVie. We blame the sick criminal for that act. How many people will the latest ******* movie put in the hospital? [edit: Movie title that starts with "Jack" and ends with slang for "Donkey"... little too PC here with the word filter perhaps
] How many underage pregnancies will MTV lead to this year by showing 12-year-olds how cool it is to hook up with the local hotties.
To bring up that comparison I've used before, I'm sure more underage drinkers died from alcohol this weekend than died in this shooting. It's a continual, grinding body count. There is a lot less media attention with these though (unless it's one of the all to common mutliple DUI death scenarios). I know for a statistical fact, and through personal experience, that when my son reaches HS age he will be at far more risk from alcohol than firearms. Risk and all though, we accept that.
But, where firearms are concerend personal responsibility always seems to take a back seat. Let's look for a firearm bandaid instead of trying to solve the actual problems leading human beings to committ these acts.
[edit: one reason is that firearm prohabition allows politicians to seem to be doing something about the problem without having to undertake the monumental, uphill battle involved with actually solving the root sources of violence in our society today (drug addiction/prohabition; inner city poverty; free speech rights vs. responsibilities vs. entertainment revenue; etc.) The results are half-assed measures suitable for the ignorant and those who influence them, that ultimately do next to nothing to solve the actual problems.]
Charon
