From Columbine to Virginia Tech - the virus infecting America's susceptible young

One aspect of the Virginia Tech tragedy that makes me despair is the gruesome inevitability of it all. As Gerard Baker wrote in his superb piece on Tuesday:

It’s so familiar you could write the script yourself. Only the names change — Jonesboro, Columbine, Lancaster County and now Virginia Tech. And the numbers

Gerard believes, and it’s hard to disagree, that such slayings will keep happening again and again. But why? Maybe, Virginia Tech happened because the Lancaster County massacre happened before that and the Columbine massacre before that.

In the The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell points to a situation in Micronesia in the 1970s and 1980s where the islands had the highest rate of teen suicide in the world – ten times higher than anywhere else on the planet. Gladwell traced this rise back to the first ever teen suicide in Micronesia, which became romanticised and repeated by the islands's susceptible young.

In a now spookily prophetic post, he says:

Teenagers were literally being infected with the suicide bug, and one after another they were killing themselves in exactly the same way under exactly the same circumstances. We like to use words like contagiousness and infectiousness just to apply to the medical realm. But I assure you that after you read about what happened in Micronesia you'll be convinced that behaviour can be transmitted from one person to another as easily as the flu or the measles can. In fact, I don't think you have to go to Micronesia to see this pattern in action. Isn't this the explanation for the current epidemic of teen smoking in this country? And what about the rash of mass shootings we're facing at the moment - from Columbine through the Atlanta stockbroker through the neo-Nazi in Los Angeles?

Even the deranged learn their behaviour from somewhere – in this case, from each other.

So how does America deal with this deadly virus? Will gun control laws help? Maybe. But not if the controls are as half-hearted as they are now. Currently in Virginia, if you’re over the age of 18 you can buy an Uzi or an AK-47 assault rifle if you pass a background check into your suitability to hold such arms. Surely wanting an Uzi or an AK-47 in the first place is a bad sign? Limiting your quota to one gun a month, as Virginia does currently, is merely playing lip-service to gun control.

As Magnus Linklater concludes in his piece today:

Banning the use or possession of weapons may be a useful palliative, but it is not the solution. Any government that wants to be seen to be taking action after a violent event can reach for legislation, but it is likely to discover that the social malaise that led to the violence is more deep-seated and intractable. There are strong arguments to suggest that American states such as Virginia should begin copying the reforms adopted by, for instance, California, which has tightened up its gun laws; and they must move against the glorification of the gun, which encourages not only the ownership but the use of arms.

In the end, however, that will not be enough. What is needed is a wholesale shift in the national culture — and that will take rather longer than an arms ban.

Murad Ahmed

UPDATE: Making sense of the senseless - Why did Virginia Tech happen?

Comments

[Viv from London]

Oh please, give it rest. What's with the 'holier than thou' attitude of you people? What a bunch of hypocrites. I mean Europe is such a crime free and law abiding place isn't it? No guns or gun crime at all, right? Does it make you feel better and help you forget just how bad crime is in your own country by constantly bashing America? The victims have not even been buried and here are the likes of you with your knives out...you make me sick!

[JEZ]

The killer in Virginia was not an American.

[Alan Denisot]

"The virus infecting America's susceptible young"??? Your bias is showing.....
The killer has turned out to be a mentally ill young man. America is full of extremes - the best and the worst. You didn't mention the mass shootings in other countries - I suppose that they are exceptions while in the U.S., they're the rule? All young are susceptible. Suicide is a particular problem in French young.

[Elizabeth]

I absolutely adore all my friends across the pond, but you people really need to get a life. Yes, you have every right to critisize us on issues such as Iraq, Iran, etc., but please leave us to solve our domestic problems. I have come to the conclusion that it is a sense of frustration and disapointment with your own institutions that you feel you must critisize us (on every issue) in order to feel validated. The rhetoric you spew has become so hysterical, that even a person like myself who agrees with you most of the time has stop listening to what you have to say. Good or bad, folks, America is not going away. To alienate people like me who want to work with the rest of the world, is not the "smart" approach.

[John, Jacksonville, Florida]

Thanks Viv! As a proud American, I would never want to live ANYWHERE else, and while I have never owned a gun, nor plan to, even with better enforced gun laws, believe me, if you want to get a gun here, there are ways!! I know it is a bad clique, but: "Guns don't kill people, people do". Unfortunately, we have become de-sensitized to this type of violence, especially here in America. The NRA has such a strong hold over Washington, that until someone decides to stand up to them, I am afraid more of this will come. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims families AND the Cho's family too!

[James]

murder is banned so is rape has that worked no! Don't take away my family's protection because you are
scared. I would rather die on feet than live on my knees!!

[john wayne]

guns don't kill people, people kill people
is just as true as
cars don't transport people, people transport people

but trying killing and transportation without guns and cars respectively.

Plus if some people wanted to kill me I'd prefer they had no gun as people without guns wanting to kill people are not as dangerous.

perhaps I am all too simplistic and we should all be given a nuclear weapon each then we could say nuclear bombs don't cause global annihilation but people cause global annihilation and nuclear bombs have nothing to do with it

[Ben]

Outlawing things never work, the only difference it makes is that honest every day people will stop doing whatever has been outlawed. But there are always ones who choose to ignore laws and authority, after all we are human and apparently have free will, it's natural. There are always the ones who walk on the grass despite the "Do not walk on the grass" sign and have skipped through an open door that you know is a shortcut, ignoring the "no entry" sign. While matters such as murders and killings are far more serious than walking on grass etc, it is the same basic instinct that makes people do actions like that.

Personally I believe if they banned guns completely in America I reckon you would see a massive uprising in organised crime much like the 1930s and the prohibition.

Naturally this incident will spring up the old arguments about violence in movies, TV, and video games. It's wierd how no one seems to notice there is more violence on the streets and in other countries than there is in entertainment. While we all seem to live in our own little bubbles and then are surprised by shootings and murders etc, we should open our eyes and realise that these incidents are not surprising in any way considering the amount of violence in the world. Terrorism, war, gang wars, bar fights, vandalism, assault, rapes. It happens day in and day out all year round. Some of it even sparked by governments and authority such as Iraq.

Banning guns isn't the answer, personally I don't think anything short of mind control or thought regulation like out of sci-fi movies would help unless military control was introduced - but then even the illusion of freedom will vanish. The world is in too much turmoil to fix, not just America and Iraq, but everywhere.

[Scott, Texas, USA]

As much as it saddens me to say this, nothing will change. America didn't take foreign terrorism seriously until there were 3,000 killed on live television (9/11). Attitudes fundamentally changed in Europe after millions of people died in WWII. As much of a tragedy as a school shooting is, the body count of 33 is not enough to fundamentally change anything. God help us all.

[John Anderson]

Thanks for the insight. Sure the americans are bothered by this analysis, but so be it. Violence is a cancer that has spread thru the entire being of the body america, and yes, one day it has to succumb... finally. 120,000 gun deaths over the last 4 years? Hmm, that's about 100 per day!

[Rebecca]

Beg to differ, Jez, the killer was an American. he was a green card holder and as such qualifies.

[Peter Day]

At least Bush is not proposing to invade Korea-yet!

[van west]

May be a good time to invest in a company that manufactures bullet proof vests in the USA.

[Dirk R Bode]

I apologize for that "holier than you" attitude of most of my European countrymen. I don't want you to forget that the United States of Amerca once had been for so many of our ancestors the "land of the free" - and in a way it still bears the hope of those who wish to be free and unsurpressed in their daily life. There is nothing we - the Europeans can "teach" America. My heart goes out to those who had become victims of a mentally sick young man - obviously. The "American way" (the lone shootiest) he carried out his criminal deeds may be called "cultural". But after all we have our "cultural" ways in our countries as well. In Germany such destabilized personalities become "neo Nazis", in the Middle East "suizid bombers", etc. Does that qualify? Don't think so. It is so easy to blame the US because of their "gun law" - but as a survivor of a Nazi death camp let me ask you - in Europe - a question: If we had had those blamed gun laws in the time of Nazism would there have been a Holocaust? I don't know the answer but...

[Chris Luzhak]

In the end, every society has its own particular pathologies. The Balkans gave us ethnic cleansing, Germany gave us the Holocaust,Russia gave us pogroms, and Europe as a whole presided over two of the most hideous conflicts and ideologies ever unleashed by man. And yes, America gave us the gun-toting lunatic. But please, look to yourselves before adopting such an attitude of moral superiority. European violence is more episodic, but in terms of pure "body count," you guys wrote the book!

[Richard L.]

Comparing VaTech to a suicide epidemic in Micronesia is stunningly stupid.

Even the comparison to Lancaster is tenuous. The only similarity is that the shooter chose a school. That's because at schools villains are guaranteed a collection of helpless adults and children. I recall the UK's most gruesome massacre was also at a school.

All you liberal twits miss the real cause of these disasters. The schools and nearly all public institutions have lost the ability to make rational judgements regarding behavior. The Columbine kids, the pervert in PA and the Korean "son of a bitch" (confirmed by Hui's grandpa) had been causing trouble for years. They were sick perverts who had been repeatedly examined by "competent professionals". All these doctors and administrators were either too stupid, too lazy or too scared of lawsuits to lock them up or expel them.

The fact is the people our societies advance to the most responsible positions lack the common sense and practical wisdom of the average construction worker. We're being led by empty suits lacking in character, courage and vision. Our columnist is just another of these hollow men.

"Where there is no vision the people perish."

RCL

[Tony Gold]

Alienation leads to alienisation of the human psyche, so is the entire Cho family and others like it at risk of becoming inhuman?

The information below from the media suggests extreme alienation of the family and this opens a door to a potential alien presence in their psyches.

.."the Chos were largely unknown and disconnected in the Washington area, which is unusual for the tight-knit community."

"They're like ghosts," said Ron Kim of the Korean-American Dry Cleaners Association of Greater Washington.
"It is really strange for a family not to be known."

"..the local Korean community, including pastors of the largest Korean churches, civic leaders and members of the dry cleaners association, examined their records and talked to associates to see whether the Chos had any relationship with their groups. So far, none has been found."

In a disconnected family, Cho was the most vulnerable to alienisation due to his autism, paranoia and social incompatibility as a Hokie.

The inorganic reptilian predator presence in a human psyche will certainly lead a host like Cho to denigrate women and destroy humanity in an evidently inhuman way.

He did exactly this, like other paranoid sociopathic mass murderers have done in dense human communities. The host becomes unable to correct thought and behaviour with a psyche from which the spirit of humanity, with its inbuilt linkage to truth, has been pushed out.

Human society must be alert for its weaker members not to become prey for the inorganic alien forces within this solar system, just as the shepherd must watch for the weaker lambs not to become separated from the flock and be taken by predators.

[Charles Norris]

President John Kennedy began the exodus of the mentally ill from US mental hospitals with the Community Mental Health Centers act of 1963. This act was ironically prophetic. The mental health centers this scheme was supposed to create never happened because Lyndon Johnson used the money instead for Medicare and Vietnam. LBJ cynically reasoned that the crazy didn't vote, but the old and sick do. Since then, the homeless and senseless shootings have steadily increased.

The vast majority of these shootings are committed by young males under the age of 25. Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 years old when he shot Kennedy. Oswald had a psychiatric profile nearly identical to Cho's.

However, I like my country's Second Amendment regarding arms. I understand its meaning and purpose. I believe our Founding Fathers (traitors to you blokes) vaccinated the USA against what's now known as "democide". That is when a nation murders its own citizens. Not altogether unheard of, I might add. However, in the same Constitution it holds that one must be at least 25 years old to represent ones district in Congress, therefore, I believe that the minimum age to poses a firearm should be the same 25 years. The 7 years from 18 to 25 should expose those most prone to lethal mental illness and still preserve the rights of self-defense and insure the people the weapons necessary to fulfill the patriotic duty of defending the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Truth is, it's the domestic ones that worry the US the most.

[Jasmine]

Have you ever heard the saying,

"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"??