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Guns are not the answer, Part 2
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Steven Kazmierczak was a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and recent student of Northern Illinois University. On Valentine’s Day he entered a NIU lecture hall and opened fire, killing five students and wounding 16 others before shooting himself. On Feb. 8, 2008, Louisiana Technical College student Latina Williams shot and killed two other students before killing herself. The motives of these students are not yet known. There has not been enough time to investigate. Clearer examples of what creates a killer may be found in the shootings from 2007.
Asa H. Coon told another SuccessTech Academy student that he did not believe in God, that he only worshipped Marilyn Manson, a popular musician that frequents dark themes such as violence and suicide. The argument this started soon escalated into a fight and Coon was suspended. On Oct. 10, 2007, two days after the argument, Coon came back to school and shot and injured two students and two teachers before killing himself. Thankfully, no one else died. The influence of the media in his decision is very clear. The role of society in shaping killers is much clearer with Seung-Hui Cho, perhaps the most notorious shooter.
Seung-Hui Cho had a difficult time growing up. His parents were non-English speaking immigrants. As a child he was well liked but didn’t socialize very much. His elementary school teachers praised his English and math skills. He began to hate school at an early age, despite his good performance.
In middle school he began to develop slight antisocial behavior and was teased for his shyness and his speech, which was unusual due to his home environment. In eighth grade Cho was diagnosed with selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder that left him unable to speak in certain social situations even though he was capable of understanding and speaking the language. Cho was ridiculed for his shyness and lack of friends more and more as time went on and he was even singled out by a high school teacher and humiliated in front of his entire class. He began to resent, and even hate, the people that subjected him to this degradation.
In college, Cho began to tell fantastic lies to either cover up or divert attention from his complete lack of friends. He began stalking girls, usually communicating only through instant messaging or lines of poetry, unable to actually hold a conversation. Cho was removed from a poetry class due to his violent and obscene poetry and his strange behavior in class. On Dec. 14, 2005 Virginia Special Justice Paul Barnett stated that Cho “presented an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness.” Cho was released as an outpatient. By law, it was still legal for him to buy firearms.
Sixteen months and four days later, Cho shot and killed 32 fellow Virginia Tech students and then killed himself. Before the final attack, which ended with his suicide, Cho sent a package to NBC News with video files, pictures and documents. These pictures and videos portrayed Cho as something of a hero, posing valiantly with his semi-automatic pistols. A picture of hollow-point bullets was captioned “All the shit you’ve given me, right back at you with hollow points.” Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist that took part in the investigation, stated that the “videos do not help us understand Cho. They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character.” The police said that the media package offered little help when it came to learning and understanding why the massacre took place.
I disagree.
As a society, it seems that we are geared to produce such cases. School shootings become more and more common every year and bring more safety regulations.Gun laws do nothing to slow the rate of increase. Allowing guns on campus would do nothing to prevent these shootings. Even in a best-case scenario, one person will be left dead. In a society where reaching out to strangers violates a social norm and is considered invading their personal space, people will be ostracized.
In a society where the violent outlaw is glorified, and the idea of the loser gaining fame through a desperate plan is a social ideal, violent outbreaks are a logical result. How do we combat something that is a direct result of the culture it comes from? How do we prevent something that might be created by our daily behavior or the movies we watch? These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves if we truly want to prevent school shootings.
It may be that the answer is raising awareness about the issue or setting up programs to help those with anxiety disorders communicate in a more human fashion. If students are provided with means to positively solve simple problems within their interpersonal relationships it may be possible to prevent such desperate acts of hatred. Guns do not save people. Guns kill people. When dealing with a human problem, guns can never be the answer.
MARCUS HELEKER
Opinion Writer