Sunday, April 22, 2007

Scary thoughts

What would make a person want to walk into a room and shoot everyone around him?

It is all well and good to talk about gun laws and I whole heartedly agree that being able to so easily acquire a gun and walk around with it has a lot to do with such killings. I mean even if someone went mad like that, if he had no gun, it would be logistically very difficult for him to kill that many people.

But what I cant understand is what must go through a person's head before he or she decides to take such drastic measures. And what is the person trying to prove to the world?

I saw the video clippings that the killer in the virginia tech shootings recorded of himself. And while I heard mumbling about 'all you rich kids', I really have no idea what he was talking about. What must he have gone through for him to have done this? It isn't something that naturally comes to people is it? Was he being vindictive? It sounded like it. According to 'reports' that a whole bunch of people from the university are giving now, he was a disturbed person who had shown a liking for violence. But there are millions of people who like violence. What makes that one person step beyond the line and actually act upon it?

If someone ('rich kids'??) had hurt him or insulted him in any way, why did he choose to take that out on random people around him? I guess noone will ever know what really made him do it. I heard someone on talk back radio the other day say 'If people around him thought he was mentally disturbed, why didn’t they act upon it?'. But they did. His teacher apparently even went to the authorities. But can you really blame the authorities? What were they meant to do? Lock him up just because he wrote a violent play. If that was the only criteria for declaring someone criminally insane, what would you do to someone like Stephen King? It's impossible to know isnt it?

And if it is impossible to know, is it really possible to stop further such killings?

3 comments:

Vik said...

LEAVE STEPHEN KING ALONE!!!! AND DO NOT BLAME VIDEO GAMES AND VIOLENT MOVIES...

Fact is there are too many fuked up kids in america. as long as they stay in america and don't cause problems anywhere else, who cares. In fact I suggest US should pick out kids who have violent tendencies at an early age(like 5 or 6) and chuck them on the streets of basra or baghdad. that'll teach them.

'Tis a beautiful life! said...

you missed my entire point there!
I wasnt saying that Stephen King is responsible for anything (and i didnt even mention viloent games and movies)...was just saying that how are you to know that someone will turn out that way.

Vik said...

i know, i wasn't addressing your point, i was making my own!