2007 ends with 5 major shootings by young men I can recall. Why? I feel I know, but how do you feel?

Question

I find myself thinking about the number of shootings executed by young men this year. It is truly heartbreaking that they felt so badly, so angry, they felt the need to conduct a violent retribution against their society, against their fellow human beings. There was Seung Hui-Cho, the 23 year old South Korean English major from Virginia Tech who killed 32 people back in April before killing himself. There was Asa Coon, the 14 year old boy who injured 4 people before killing himself at Success Tech Academy in Ohio in October. There was Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the 18 year old student who killed 9 people in Jokela Secondary School in Finland before killing himself in November. There was 19 year old Robert A. Hawkins, who killed 9 people in Westroads Mall in Nebraska on December 5th before killing himself. And there was 24 year old Matthew J. Murray, who killed 5 people at the churches Colorado YWAM and New Life in Colorado on December 9th before killing himself.

Our disconnected society touts solutions like increased security, more psychiatric testing, stricter gun control. I don't feel that will solving anything. I don't feel that these measures address the fundamental issues, the root of why these young me found life so unbearable that they had to kill themselves and take others with them. I feel that the real cause is the one all of us feel crushed by : the unspoken prohibition against talking about how we really feel, about expressing who we really are, the invisible mask we all feel forced to wear just to survive. I feel that these young me were examples of the feelings all of us harbour inside our sad and weary souls carried to the violent extreme, but the roots of their actions are ones all of us understand and feel inside ourselves. That disconnection. That isolation. That loneliness. It's suffocating. I feel the solution is for us, as a society, a people is to allow and encourage each other to express ourselves freely, without fear.

3 responses already. Thanks everyone. Communication is the hallmark of the human species. Talking about the difficult, painful things that exist in our lives is the way by which we can understand and mature beyond them. / Hi peapatch. I appreciate your honest response my friend. I much rather you give your gut reaction than some shiny polished response, like the one you're supposed to give in the charade we call job interviews. Murder is as old as human history. No argument from me there my friend. The 1800's. Infamous for Jack the Ripper. I agree. A semi-automatic rifle in his hands would have been a horror. Now, I must say my friend that Jack and all the other killers of human past had the same needs as the 5 young killers I mentioned above : the need to be able to express themselves freely and be understood by their society, by us. Seung Hui-Cho wrote a play in his drama class which was full of macabre imagery and violent innuendo.

The other students noticed he was isolated, lonely, but, it is such a common occurence in today's society that the students can be forgiven if they just ignored it. Their parents do. Everyone else does. Ignoring problems is the way humanity copes with difficulties at this stage of our evolution. The Ostrich Approach. Head buried firmly in sand. / Hi Special K. yeagh. There is a lot of violence in the media. I saw Rambo when I was 5. I thought that carrying a big gun and killing anyone who was a "bad guy" was cool. so limited. so sad. I like action. Martial Arts are fascinating displays of human being's physical prowess and testing one's strength is as natural as the desire to learn how to dance to impress a girl/boyfriend. It's just the avenues our society teaches us are available to express ourselves are always about vicious competition, the no-holds barred conquest to be #1, have the most money, the nicest car, the best house,

the ability to buy as much materialism as possible to fill the huge, gaping hole inside our hearts and souls. Blaze of glory? Martryrdom? Very observant my friend. Why do these young men want these things? simple. sad and simple. They want us to notice them. "Please! Stop ignoring me! I'm here! Notice me! ...please..." sniff. sniff. but we don't. we just ignore them like we ignore each other. / Hi cool_han. I have a saying my friend, when somebody doesn't like what I have to say. "Just treat me like a homeless person. Ignore me." Since we are children, we are taught to ignore others pain. At school, we watch other kids get bullied and leave them alone so we don't become targets ourselves. The victim's pain is ignored. The bully's pain is ignored too. Oh yes. The bully's know pain in their lives as well. Why do we think they cause others pain in the first place? Even the spectators know pain. The pain of guilt for turning away.

The pain of knowing that they could have been the victims too. Yes my friend. MTV. Reality shows. Sex. Drugs. Violence. All forms of blocking out the pain. Of ignoring it. THAT'S THE PROBLEM! Ignoring our pain. We have to stop! WE HAVE TO STOP! There's no need for young men full of potential, to feel so horrible, to find life so empty and bleak, that they think nothing of killing themselves and taking others with them. Did you know that more than 30,000 people in Japan kill themselves each year. That's a whole small city. Dead. WHY? Because we don't talk about our feelings. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT OUR FEELINGS! all the time. as long as we need to. no matter what they are. / Unexpressed pressure will build until it reaches a point of critical mass and then will either be released or create a means of release. Those poor young men were balloons who nobody reached out to release the air out of...

I think about this song all the time http://www.radioblogclub.com/open/84754/Switchfoot-Meant-To-Live "Meant to Live" (Switchfoot). I feel the need keenly. Irreprisibly. Building day after day. I just want to know, it's ok for me to talk about my feelings, no matter what they are, and I won't be ostracized for it. Maybe if those poor young men had known that, they wouldn't have felt that they didn't deserve to live, and their victims didn't either.

Answer 1

shhhush now just turn your eyes away and dont look and listen or see and it wont hurt as much! at least that what everyone else does! so long as they can sit in thier homes with thier mtv, reality shows, sex, drugs, violence, brain washing tube and not be bothered.
treasonists ...

Answer 2

these people doing the shootings are either deranged or they've chosen a path of isolation or feeling so surrounded and abused by everyone else that they lash out.

not to burst your bubble, but deranged, unstable people have been committing attacks on others since the dawn of time. the only difference being that a deranged man in the 1800s or 1500s could only kill people with limited weapons in an age where people had no qualms about carrying a weapon around for self-dense. now a nutcase can simply get his hands on weapons designed to slaughter others very easily and learn to use them without much effort. if you gave an unstable or an isolated-homicidal person living in the 1850s an assault rifle, his carnage would be greater than one or two people.

every one of these loons going out and shooting innocent people can be prevented with vigilance and stopping the person with hardcore consuelling and psycho-drugs making them into docile zombies.

Answer 3

This kind of mass murderer is usually isolated socially; and it is not the society that causes this. Sometimes it is mental illness, sometimes it is the end of a series of choices.
Anybody who feels strong temptations to do something like this should indeed seek out somebody to talk to, somebody who is willing to hear their feelings. Of course this is likely to get them locked up temporarily (but that's better than dead, isn't it?). I know one young man who was struggling with this kind of urge; thank God he told somebody and was hospitalized briefly, and since then has been doing much better. I talked to another man whose friend had shot two people and himself; the man was distraught because his friend told him what he was going to do, but he didn't believe it and didn't report it. Better safe than sorry. And don't try to handle it alone, either.
Some mass killers never tell anybody what they are thinking, however.

Answer 4

could be that there is just too much violence out there. it's so easy to get a gun. we see too much craziness on tv, news, and in the movies. and then with what's happening in the middle east, there is a notion that those who go out in a blaze of glory will become a martyr. simple craziness going on all around.