A while back, I read a book by Lionel Shriver called 'We need to talk about Kevin'. I think it's a brilliant book - go to the wikipedia link to get more detail on it if you haven't read it - but in brief it's a fictional work written from the point of view of a mother of a Columbine type killer. Not an actual Columbine killer, but a kid who took his crossbow to school and killed a bunch of his classmates. While not easy reading, it was a very thought provoking book, asking the question: Is it all bad parenting, or are some kids just born evil?
I'm not trying to jump on the bandwagon and just score extra page hits with this post, I'm just wondering if anyone else noticed one similarity between the book and the shootings at Virginia Tech that stood out for me: Kevin chained the doors of the gym where he staged his massacre; and the doors to Norris Hall were chained shut. I don't think it's been established if Cho Seung-Hui chained the doors, but this did give me something to think about.
Enough times in the media I have read about kids getting bad ideas from movies/music/video games and acting them out, but I've given little thought to those claims. I've blown most of that off, saying that if the kid was that way inclined, he could get his motivation from anywhere. How I have proved my point here, and with consequences that feel far more real to me than the initial argument ever did. If a prize-winning novel written to provoke thought could inspire an educated young adult to do something like this (I'm not saying it did, I'm just theorising), then we couldn't be safe for banning kid's from playing all the video games in the world!
This is not a new thought by any means. Some people reading this will think 'well duh!'. It's just that it hit me with force today, and I'm wondering what exactly we can do about this? Censorship and Gun control can only go so far. People who really want to wreak havoc will find a way.
"It's a mucked up world" a favorite preacher of mine likes to say, and boy do I agree with him today.
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2 comments:
Yep, guns don't kill people, people kill people. It is no use banning cars because thousands die every year in car accidents, it is no use banning guns because people are getting killed by them. I vote for brainwashing. Only other people of course. Those that disagree with me, that don't have the same beliefs and education and language and profession and interests and skin colour and gender as me. You people need it. :)
You might want to read a friend of mine's view on this. Interesting.
http://catherinerossetti.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-thoughts-on-seung-hui-cho.html
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