Washington State high school ‘homecoming prince’ opened fire in the cafeteria Friday, killing a girl and wounding four other people before fatally shooting himself, police and witnesses said.
A hospital official said three patients were in ‘very critical condition’ with head wounds after the shooting at Marysville Pilchuck High School about 10:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. ET)…
Police said the shooter … died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
(NBC News, October 25, 2014)
Frankly, the only commentary this latest shooting evokes is for me to repeat this abiding admonition:
I’m constrained to wonder why the media always reward these psychotic people by giving them the fame they covet; that is, by plastering their pathetic mugs all over television and on the front page of every major newspaper … worldwide, and reporting pop psychology about why and how they did their dastardly deeds. Isn’t it clear to see, especially in this age of instant celebrity, why some loser kid would find this route to infamy irresistible?
You’d think that – given the record of these psychotic and vainglorious episodes since Columbine – we would have figured out by now that the best way to discourage them is by focusing our attention on the victims and limiting what we say about the shooter to: May God have mercy on your soul as you burn in hell!
(“Massacre in Omaha,” The iPINIONS Journal, December 7, 2007)
And to repeat this abiding concession:
I fully support strict gun-control laws. Nevertheless, I am convinced that no laws can prevent these kinds of human tragedies. In fact, incidents like this bring into stark relief the fact that it’s not guns, but insane and troubled people – with motives no one can possibly anticipate or comprehend – who commit mass murders.
(“Massacre at Virginia Tech,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 17, 2007)
That said, I feel still constrained to decry the media glorification of this kid (whose tormented ego was clearly not sufficiently stroked by being crowned the homecoming prince of Marysville High). Because coverage of him and his idle-minded motives has already become so perverse and irresponsible that it vindicates – what would’ve been – his reasonable expectation that this shooting rampage would make him world famous. Sure enough, all that’s left is for Rolling Stone to feature him like a rock star (a la the Boston Marathon bomber).
Therefore, is it any wonder that some other disaffected, demented and/or deluded kid (watching this media orgy play out) would harbor ideations of taking a similar path to infamy…? Again, given this coverage, it’s entirely reasonable for him (or, in due course, her) to think that nothing will ever become him in this life quite like going out in a blaze of glory … by gunning down a bunch of his schoolmates.
Until the next one, then….
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