As this tragedy is dissected in the national media, including the countless times this man/boy slipped through the grasp of safeguards in place to stop just such a thing happening, one thing jumps out at me; the way his writings are being used to bias a national public.
After this outrage, after the bodies are buried and grieving has been faced, will the only time we hear this sick, murderer’s name be when some politician wants to advocate their issue on gun control or on censorship?
I’ve read the two plays that are up on AOL, they are bad. Yes, they are violent, but mostly they are just bad. In hindsight we can all say that they foreshadowed his actions, but it is not a direct line between violent, demented writing and killing spree.
In hindsight, many works of fiction portray dangerous though. If someone thought some of my own fiction were true, real thoughts and characters, blueprints for future actions, they should and would lock me up, but they are not.
I don’t want to forget about the innocent people who lost their lives or everyone else that had their life changed irretrievably, or how this person exposed more weaknesses in our security by doing the unthinkable, but I do want to forget this murderer who has lived in our country since 1993, attended our school systems and college, and did not learn the value of human life.
He was such a coward that he would not face anyone for what he did, taking his life, and seemingly the only interaction he ever had with others was when he finally killed them with a weapon.
One unique thing about this incident, we aren’t getting the typical responses we get about people that do this sort of thing. It’s so common that is a cliche joke, the interviews with neighbor’s after an incident. “Oh, he was a nice quiet guy, never would have thought..”
Yeah, none of that here. It seems the world is now full of people that knew this guy was a sick puppy, but he went on about his business. He got a gun, maybe two, he killed two people and got away, then went unimpeded to a classroom building turned shooting gallery.
It is simply frightening how easy it was for him. He was no mastermind. He was a completely screwed up kid, still able to take that many lives before he stopped himself. As details continue to unfold, I will be interested to find out what it was that finally made him stop and turn the gun on himself, did he run out of places to avoid capture, or did he just decide he’d done enough?
I want to believe the former.
Still, I don’t want to hear this guy’s name the next time they are trying to keep a Lucy Taylor story out of a magazine, or ban a song, or movie. This is a sign that we need to implement the tjhings we have in place, not pass new laws or inhibit creativity.
I guess I’m just venting now, thanks for reading.
