Good Friday -

[kyburg]

"Where ... was my help when the low test scores came in? Where was the help from outside? Give me the money to help these kids. You get paid back later on by them going on to college and getting good jobs," he said.

And as for weise's wearing black, spiking his hair and adopting gothic dress style, Desjarlait said, "He has rights. He did no crime dressing like that."

Scary that I can put a user name in there.

Yeah, and the superintendent looks like a mushy-headed liberal, too (riiiiight):



Oh, and at the risk of stirring the embers from the flames over guns from last week?

But the more relevant context, I think, is that young people are under tremendous pressure these days, whatever their station in life. In a high-powered suburban school district like Columbine, it's not enough just to go to college; anything less than the Ivy League or another top-rank school is seen as failure. In less affluent Red Lake, Jeff Weise may have looked ahead and seen, to the extent he could see anything clearly, a life of quiet, desperate anonymity.

That pressure helps spin a common thread that runs through these horrific incidents: the apparent desire to make an indelible mark, to leave behind a manifesto that cannot be ignored. To force the world to finally pay attention.

In the six years since Columbine, we've had alienation-style school shootings in Georgia, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Michigan, Florida, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, California again, Indiana, Michigan again, New York, Pennsylvania again -- all before Red Lake. For those in Europe who blame it all on our insanely lax gun laws, it should be noted that there have also been school shootings in gun-averse Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Germany again (deadlier than Columbine), Bosnia, and even in Carmen de Patagones, Argentina, practically at the end of the earth. Reasonable gun laws alone, while sorely needed, wouldn't be enough.

Anyone who has studied suicides in this age group "under pressure" around the world knows it exists - but what fuels the desire to "leave a mark" - when so many don't, and just point the guns at themselves?

Interesting.

I stand by my assertion that it's the belief guns solve problems - always - that fuels most of the problems we have with them in this country. Not easy access, not lax gun laws.

--

In other news, still sick. Not sick enough to stay home, but sick enough to hate being awake. That work for you?

Comments

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

So it is confirmed that weise is in fact the actual kid and not some person's idea of a bad joke?

What a shame.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately -

Not only did he have an lj...

[djdig.livejournal.com]

Turns out he made flash animations:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/195194
Not many people know about it at the moment, but once this link gets bantered around, you can bet the views will jump from 2,000 to 100,000... Pretty insane. Read the comments from when he was still alive... his responses to some of the comments are eerie.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Oh, and BTW - that article you were so gracious to allow someone to interview you for? I almost cross-posted the picture because it was so cute!

But that guy had no business doing that article if he was so put off by the material. I mean, really.

[djdig.livejournal.com]

When did lj confirm it? I just assumed it was a sick joke.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

The last name matches, the town matches, the journal's been around for awhile. That coincidence seems to strong. News media have been quoting it.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

And his dad had committed suicide, his mom was in a rest home with brain damage from a car wreck, and (according to his aunts on the News Hour) they'd gotten him treatment after he started cutting, and he'd just had his Prozac dosage increased. I have no doubt, with past ties to Prozac and suicide in teens, they'll include that in the investigation.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

The picture itself is fine, if a bit dark (and with BLEAH Yu-Gi-Oh in on the screen). The photographer was trying to do all sorts of things, but the reporter had an idea of how he wanted to photograph us. -_- Whatever! ^_^

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Let's not forget Japan ...

http://www.keystosaferschools.com/Seventeen&Deadly_Japan_Article.htm

You don't need guns for school violence. Never have. They are simply another tool in the arsenal of the mad.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Agreed...

Actually, I think the cultural problem is the obverse of what was originally stated.

When my father was a lad he routinely carried a shotgun to school. And ammo. Not because he was some kind of a nut, but because his folks were poor, and a good shot on the way home meant the difference between rabbit stew and potato soup.

And this was never a problem because he and all his classmates were taught respect for the weapon and what it could do. It was part of their culture.

Both jenkitty and I were raised in houses with weapons decently easy to hand, and knew where they were. We were also taught respect for the weapons... and for Dad's belt. There was never a problem.

Where do we see school shootings? Urban areas. Places where huntin' an' fishin' and farmin' aren't part of one's everyday existence... places where respect for the environment is not taught as something you HAVE to do lest Daddy have to go get a "city job" (and you get the butt whuppin' of your life).

If it was me, small-bore weapons training would be part of one's sixth grade experience. Conscientious objectors would still have to pass a written quiz on safety.... because the time may come when they would have to disable a weapon, and they need to know how without causing a bigger problem. Take the mystique away, make a class of it, make a competition and make safety part of that competition... and you lose the "ooh aaah" factor and make it a lot more like your native Switzerland. Teach respect for the weapon, respect for a sensible body of law surrounding it.... and I won't guarantee there won't be problems, but there will be a lot fewer of them.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Precisely. I think we're talking about the same thing - this is definitely a problem of culture.

And culture is to people what water is to fish.

Weapons training wasn't a part of my sixth-grade experience, but knowledge of weapons and what they could do certainly was. You kill things with guns, point blank.

However, it wasn't in the context of game play. I've always winced a bit at shooter games - and I think that's why.

Ever heard of a knabbeschiesen? It's a fall holiday in Switzerland - the day the boys come out to compete in their first shooting fest. (1991 was the first year the girls were allowed to compete too.) I think the minumum age was 15 or 16...I'm not certain.

And every Swiss I ever met would rather make love (and plenty of it) than go shooting. Watch their media - you can see nekkid everyone in the soap commercials - but the detective shows? No guns. I watched a show where the detective went after the bad guy in a kitchen - and used every weapon in the place, including a hand mixer. But no gun.

Guns are used by sportsmen, and in war. You don't solve petty arguments with a gun.

A couple of thoughts...

[murphymom.livejournal.com]

"Anyone who has studied suicides in this age group "under pressure" around the world knows it exists - but what fuels the desire to "leave a mark" - when so many don't, and just point the guns at themselves?"

I don't know if it's as much the desire to "leave a mark" as much as it may be a function of who the individual holds more responsible for his/her pain. IOW, if the mindset is, "I'm a miserable failure and the world will be better off without me," the gun gets pointed at oneself alone; if the midset is, "I'll show those fsckers who have made my life hell," the shooter takes others along. That's a broad brush, and probably nowhere near universal, but I'd be willing to believe it has some truth.

As to it being a cultural issue, yes, I'd agree - and I think the cultural issue may also contribute to the extreme feelings on both sides of the debate. If one has grown up in an environment where guns serve a useful purpose (food on the table, defense against predatory animals, etc), I imagine the idea of gun "control" seems threatening to some very basic needs; conversely, having grown up in an environment where guns serve no useful purpose and are generally only heard of in connection with violence, the idea of being against control often seems like wrongheadedness at best and complete foolishness at the worst.

That being said - there is still the question of how that rational, responsible attitude toward guns did not get communicated to school shooters (and others) who grew up in what were not precisely urban communities, and were places in which some familiarity with weapons and their potential for harm should have been understood.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Guns are used by sportsmen, and in war. You don't solve petty arguments with a gun.

In an ideal world, this is true. In today's streets, however, what am I supposed to do, tell the mugger "that's not sporting"??

I don't go looking for trouble. No one I know who exercises their Second Amendment rights on a regular basis does. (They would not be my friend very long if they did.) Frankly, I prefer to solve arguments with a keyboard or other words, or, barring that, by voting with my feet. But if trouble finds me, I expect to be able to deal with it.

It's a little known fact that 90+% of encounters involving law-abiding weapons-carrying citizenry ends without a shot being fired. We're not a bloodthirsty lot. But that kind of news doesn't get ratings, so it's never reported. Even then, it's not petty arguments we resolve... it's things that would ordinarily end up with an arrest for B&E or rape or worse.... that instead turn into a quick run home to change one's underwear and contemplate a career change for the guy on the business end of the deal.

Ganstas and uneducated kids settle arguments with hot lead. Law abiding citizenry don't start fights like that... but some of us are prepared to finish a fight if someone else is so incredibly dense as to start one.

There will always be stupid people in the world. It is our duty to be prepared to deal with them. It's not pleasant, but it's true. Law enforcement cannot be there 24x7; gods help us if they could. It's a simple matter of personal responsibility. Presumably you're trained in your weapon of choice. I'm trained in mine. I don't have the wrist strength to handle a staff-type or edged weapon... but I do have enough to be competent with a pistol.

I do wish we could return to the culture my father grew up in, at least with regards to weaponry. (Certain other things about that era I'm very glad we don't have.) But until we can re-educate folks... we're rather stuck with what we have, and it's up to each of us to deal with it as best we can. I respect your choice not to carry. What I'm hoping is that you can see the difference between ganstas and other such assholes, and law-abiding citizenry who exercise their second amendment rights legitimately and as peacefully as possible.

[ecstaticlght.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link to that article. I found myself re-reading Real Boys again not hours before that shooting occured. I like to open the book up every now and then to remind myself of how my sons tick and of how to help them learn to break through those barriers that create the shooters that cry bullets.