Do You Feel Any Sympathy for Omaha Mall Shooter? Some people do and I dont understand why.?

Question

The mall shooter was described in newspaper reports today as quiet and depressed. I think the newspaper reporters wanted a music track of violins playing hearts and flowers.
Quiet and depressed is a vast understatement. The mall shooter was angry, malevolent, psychotic, and a common criminal with a gun who was too much of a coward to go to prison for what he had done. That's why he shot himself.
I don't have sympathy for him, and I don't think most people do either. I think most people are disgusted to read the hearts and flowers shrinkage of the kid.


He fits an all-too-familiar pattern: Kids playing with real guns as if they are playing video games. And it doesn't quite work to say they were desensitized to violence, because after all he was sensitized enough to know how horrific it was and to make sure he wasn't around to answer for it.

He fits an all-too-familiar pattern: Kids playing with real guns as if they are playing video games. And it doesn't quite work to say they were desensitized to violence, because after all he was sensitized enough to know how horrific it was and to make sure he wasn't around to answer for it.
I suppose there were warning signs, but it also seems useless to talk about warning signs if no one will do anything. The warning signs should have told somebody to lock him up. They could force-feed him his meds. They could give him a lobotomy. They could keep him under lock and key forever. All of it would have been better than eight people dying because they were trying to get their Christmas shopping done and some demented excuse for a human being thought it was a good day to kill.

With all due respect to those who think these baby-faced killers need help, I'll volunteer. I'll help walk them to a jailhouse door. I'll help them to a high window to jump out of. I'll help them lift a pill to their lips and gulp it down. But I won't help them clean up their reputations with phony sympathy for their alleged plight.

He was nothing but a criminal who cheated justice by killing himself. The dirty secret nobody will say is everybody thinks he should have started with himself instead of saving himself for last.

I know it's harsh, but it's true.

Answer 1

I'm not saying i do or don't, but it's much easier to hate someone if you make them out to be a vicious monster. The fact is, these people are generally the way they are because we as a society set up the conditions to make them the way they are.

So...while I may or may not feel sympathy for a person like this, I'd still recognize that I and the rest of society have failed these people, and they need to be dealt with accordingly.

Answer 2

While I don't know that I can sympathize with what the shooter did, I can understand the reasoning behind what made him do what he did. According to the report I saw on the "Today Show" he:

-was described as a "lost puppy" that no one paid attention to
-was kicked out of his parents house for quitting school
-was living with a friend's family - even though his parent's lived nearby
-had just broken up with his girlfriend
-had just been fired from his job at McDonald's

So here you have a lonley, disturbed, obviously depressed, isolated individual who lost the only things that tethered him to society (girlfriend, job, parental guidance/affection, a stable home). Since he most likely felt there was nothing left to lose, and (probably) harbored resentment for a society that didn't care about him or what he was going through, he decided to end his own life, and in the process, try to acheive the notoriety that he could never realize in life.

It's very easy to understand how someone can be driven to their "snapping point", but that does not excuse their actions, because they wind up taking out people who had NOTHING to do with why their lives are the way they are.

This has been happening more and more in this country, yet no one wants to address the bigger issue here, which is that many people slip between the cracks of society every day due to the self-involved nature of us all, who see someone who is obviously troubled, yet do nothing about it. We seem to have a complacent, apathetic lassez-faire attitude of "it's someone else's problem" rather than taking the reins when we see this in others and trying to get them some help.

Until we become less self-absorbed as a society, incidents like this will continue to happen more frequently.

Answer 3

His faith wasn't pronounced because of the fact it would not have something to with the shootings. He improve into depressed, lost his activity, his lady buddy, and his dad and mom kicked him out of the residing house. He reportedly had a drug and/or alcohol situation. He lost his strategies, and went on a rampage. there's a distinction between psychological ailment, and non secular terrorism - even with the undeniable fact that many have self belief terrorists are nuts. Terrorists are making a assertion approximately their faith, or their ideals, often with the help of their faith, on a similar time as mentally sick people have different motives. they choose to be observed, or get revenge. they choose others to sense their discomfort. If his non secular ideals have been the reason in the back of his rampage - it might have been pronounced. If the guy had strapped on explosives and blew himself up interior the call of God, or Allah, or notwithstanding - his faith might have been proper, because it might have been the inducement for his crime. yet that's no longer the case with this journey. The media is reporting this tale properly. It sounds such as you are the only with the situation.

Answer 4

Killing yourself is evolution in action killing others without just cause is WRONG ! The police and political hacks however won't let us defend ourselves { perhaps the are afraid we might wellll never mind } if you had shot the bastard while he was shooting those people and saved some lives the police would arrest you and try you for murder something is definitely wrong with this picture!

Answer 5

No i feel bad for his family that has to put up with people snarling at them and you REALLY can not help who u r related to! I feel very sorry for the innocent people who lost their lives just by being at work and shopping.. I fell sorry for their family who have to make some kind of sense out of this whole mess. AS for the dumb a*( kid he will pay for what he did one way or another.....

Answer 6

I have nothing more that can be said that you didnt already say. I feel the exact same way. I dont care how old he was, and if he just broke up with his girlfriend or not, its just not right. i feel no sympathy for him what so ever. but i do wonder,, what made him write that letter to his mother before he killed all them people and himself saying,," now i'll be famous" ? was his mother or someone on his case about something? either way, he shouldn't have shotten anyone, but if he had to, it should have been himself 1st.

Answer 7

You should be in office.... Yeah, what are "warning signs" anyways? Arent most teens depressed? I was, but I didnt kill anyone... And, how exactly do you act on "warning signs" Who is the authority on this? Police? yeah right! School officials? Yeah right..... So, who Do we tell? It all seems to fit together after the fact, society wants to always shift blame for some reason.

Answer 8

I don't know if I feel sympathy for him, but he was definitely a person who had serious emotional problems. He was not a normal kid who happened to play too many video games. He had received a significant amount of psychiatric treatment, which apparently wasn't enough.

Answer 9

Ha. Good question!
No I don't.
He disregarded the lives of innocent people so, just like that deranged Cho clown in Virginia,
GOOD RIDDANCE to bad rubbish.

And he didn't accept help...
I do feel sorry for his family, though.

Answer 10

I do feel that this kid had tough breaks. I don't care who you are but not being wanted by your own family tends to mess you up. I'm not justifying what he did because what he did was obviously wrong but I do feel for him. There were warning signs and maybe if someone had picked up on them then we wouldn't be talking about this right now and 8 innocent people would still be alive today.