Do I smell another gun control thread emerging? Heaven help us! :)
On Mar 12, 4:42 pm, frantheman <[email protected]> wrote:
> The past few days have seen two frightening series of rampage
> killings, in Alabama and in Southern
> Germany:http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,612863,00.html
> Living in Germany, and having a 17-year-old daughter going to school
> here, I've been hearing and reading quite a bit about our local horror
> in the past few days. It seems to have been a typical case of a boy/
> young man with major mental/self-image problems irrevocably losing it.
>
> The talking heads are waffling about the availability of weapons (Tim
> K. used a Beretta his father kept in his bedroom), graphic computer
> games (Counterstrike) and all the other usual stuff. Despite my oft-
> posted abhorrence for privately-held guns, I don't really think that
> further gun control is the answer (not to this particular problem -
> rampage killings take place in societies with tight and with lax gun-
> control - the killers seem to be able to get the guns anyway). I also
> don't believe that 99.99% of kids are significantly brutalised by
> graphic games - otherwise no street in the world would be safe to
> walk, given the fact that almost all 18-year old males in the
> developed world have,or have had significant exposure to such games.
>
> I don't know if there is any real answer to such events. Growing up
> has always has its problems and it certainly isn't easy for kids
> today, in our high-octane, high-pressure, consuming/consumptive
> performance- and success-driven society. One interesting comment I've
> heard claimed that girls tend to internalise aggression (with results
> such as the repeated cutting of arms) while guys are more likely to
> channel that argression outwards. That said, it was the amok killings
> of Brenda Ann Spencer in 1979, which inspired Bob Geldof to write, "I
> Don't Like Mondays", which maybe gives the best explanation for why
> such things happening - the best because it just expresses rather than
> explains the unexplainable:
> "The silicon chip inside her head
> gets switched to overload ... "
>
> Francis
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