Virginia Tech
If someone walks into a room with a gun and shoots people, they do so because somehow it makes sense to them to do so. It seemed like an appropriate thing to do for that person at that time in that place. It's important for me to understand how such things manage to make sense to that person, when they seem to make so little sense to others. It is important for me to understand the kind of journey that brings you to the place where you do something like that. There but for the grace of circumstance go I.
posted by Anthony at
1:20 AM
1 Comments:
There's a thought-provoking article from Jon Ronson on the Guardian's Comment is Free website. He recently interviewed some of those connected to a failed school shooting in Alaska, this time last year. In the article, he quotes Joe, the father of one of the ringleaders, who was fighting in Iraq when his son was arrested. Two passages stand out:
"His sister goes [to this school]," Joe said. "I said to him: 'Did you tell her, so she could get out when the shooting started?' And he said: 'No.' I said: 'What if your sister heard the shooting, worried about you, ran to see what you were doing and one of the kids shot her?' And I could see from the look on his face that those thoughts had never crossed his mind. He said to me: 'We were just going to shoot the bad kids.'
[...]
Joe said he's pleased... nobody has thrown a brick through their window.
"I don't want people taking the law into their own hands," he said, "because I have an obligation to protect my son and the rest of my family. So if they push I'm going to have to push back. And, if that happens, it's not going to be pretty."
By
Dougald Hine, at Tuesday, 17 April, 2007
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