-Caveat Lector- ----- Original Message ----- From: LM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: LM-commentary <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 1999 1:57 PM Subject: LM COMMENTARY: American school shootings/04-27-99 : : American psychos? : : David Nolan reports from Washington on the hysterical discussion about the : shooting at Columbine High School : : Before the smoke had cleared over Columbine High School in Littleton, : Colorado, the questions were on everybody's lips: 'Who was to blame?'; : 'What caused this tragedy?'; 'How can we stop it happening again?'. Lots of : people had their say, but as James Poniewozik pointed out in the online : magazine Salon, 'In the land of no good explanations, the man with the : daffiest explanation is king'. : : As with so many recent tragedies, much coverage was devoted to the fact : that the killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had websites, played video : and computer games and maybe even watched too much television. One Gallup : survey revealed that 82 percent of people said the internet was at least : partly to blame for the shootings and 34 percent thought it was one of the : factors that 'deserves a great deal of blame'. Sixty percent blamed the : availability of guns, 49 percent TV, movies and music and 34 percent the : media. : : The fact that the kids wore trenchcoats was even used as evidence against : them. The San Francisco Chronicle suggested the coats were 'a symbol for : everything from Hitler and the Nazis to mass murder to suicidal fantasies'. : They are also protection against the traditionally cold Colorado winters - : but to point that out would have detracted from the irrational : helter-skelter that passed for informed discussion on the issue. : : As the horror of the events became apparent, and the media had time to do a : quick web search, television news programmes showed images downloaded from : websites purporting to 'predict' the carnage. Goths, or anybody dressed in : black and wearing makeup, were interviewed. Basement rooms filled with : game-playing computer nerds were filmed to show us all exactly where the : tragedy came from. : : Soon after, the 'mind police' came on the scene. Counsellors, : psychologists, safety experts and bullying experts all had their say. The : fact that none of them had anything to add to what your average bar-room : bore could make up after a couple of beers was irrelevant. In a thoughtful : piece in the Washington Post, columnist Jonathan Yardley described the : scene: 'First comes the sad, calamitous event...Then come the ghouls: the : oleaginous journalists, the grief therapists, the ambulance chasers, the : gurus, the zealots, the Mister Fix-Its...the invasion of the bodysnatchers.' : : While some demanded controls on guns, and several commentators have pointed : out that every other country (including Serbia) has blamed the tragedy on : America's gun culture, the discussion in the US itself has skirted the : issue. While the Clinton administration has said that it would (yet again) : examine the laws, that route has been tried, and few expect much to happen. : The rhetoric comes out, but with no expectation behind it. It is just one : of many routes open to regulators. : : The real impetus is behind increasing the regulatory controls available to : schools and the police. There is a demand for yet more controls on the : internet, video games and television violence. But, as one almost hidden : piece in the New York Times pointed out, it could just as easily be argued : that these media had nothing to do with the tragedy. Citing seven multiple : murders by teenagers between 1951 and 1979, the conclusion was obvious: 'If : the...examples fail to show a pattern, it may be because there is none.' : : That won't prevent anybody from looking for one. And it certainly won't : stop the overreaction. In the days after the shootings, several people were : arrested for the sort of threats dished out in schools every day of the : week. And then every public high school in Washington was evacuated after : one anonymous bomb threat. Last week America witnessed two tragedies. In : one, 15 people died, including some of Colorado's brightest students. In : the other, we took a further step towards the monitoring of our every move, : word and thought. : : : ------------------------------------------------------------------ : If you are not on this mailing list and would like to join, create a mail : from the address at which you would like to receive the commentaries - : : To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Body: Subscribe LM-commentary Yourname : : You should receive a confirmation of your subscription to the list. : : To unsubscribe, create a mail from the address at which you are subscribed : and send to the same address with - : : To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : Body: Unsubscribe LM-commentary : : If you have problems (un)subscribing, email: : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. : : ------------------------------------------------------------------ : You don't have to keep this Commentary to yourself. 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