Guess what, another school shooting

There was a plot earlier this year in Georgia (US) where apparently some 8&9 year-olds had a plan to harm their teacher. A brief summary is that one girl got scolded for standing on her chair, so she and her classmates hatched a plan. Overall about 9-11 of them were involved, and they had different roles for each of them. Also they brought hancuffs, rope, a large paperweight, and a knife in order to do the job... Showing some remarkable insight they had also assigned lookouts for the job.

Now, one of the kids ratted it out and we don't know how the plan would've worked out, or if they would try to carry it out, but it shows that SOME (rare) young kids are capable of crazed violence.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344369,00.html

 

Tal, in any country with access to a walmart you can get the makings for 10 pipe initiated-propane explosive nails bombs with a lethality radius of 25-35' that are cell-phone detonated for less than $300.
None of the items are in & of themselves suspicious & if you spread the purchases over a couple of days/stores almost no chance of being caught.

If you want firebombs, the fire radius goes up almost 50%(close to 50') while the lethality drops to only about a 10' radius.
Bombs are so easy to make that it is scary, why do you think IED's kill so many people in the middle east?

 

From some of the posts I get the feeling that there is a big misunderstanding of this killer and others like him. First of all according to the news reports he was checked by the police before he could purchase the gun. They gave him a clean slate. He had no record of social or mental problems. I have heard or read nothing that indicates otherwise.

I can only guess based on my own experience that something happened that made him explode inside himself. I may be wrong but I doubt he gave a great deal of thought to what he was going to do. I think that a gun would be the first thing that would come to mind. To make a bomb most people would need to research how to do it. Then all the items have to be found or purchased. Then the bomb needs to be made. That is a lot of time, effort and expense. How much money does the average student have? I have no idea how much a 22 caliber hand gun costs in Finland but at least the gun is already assembled and ready for use.

Quite important in my mind is the difference between shooting someone and blowing up someone. We can only guess at his mental state. Perhaps he started out with a particular person or persons in mind. Somehow I doubt he wanted to blow up the school but just wanted revenge on those who had tortured him. Once the shooting started it wouldn't stop until the gun was empty or he was dead.

We can speculate all we want. We can discuss the ease of making bombs. We can demand that people like him get some kind of treatment. We can blame the parents, the schools, society in general but this won't stop things like this from happening because people do not 'listen'. We are all just much too busy to listen. We have our own little soap boxes to climb on and preach from

If I have learned nothing else from the problems I am having now I have at least learned one thing. My problems are lot more important to me than yours are to me.

For those of you who are making clinical analysis of this type of situation please have the courtesy to understand that NOG and a few others (including me) have pulled the curtain away from our dark side and exposed to everyone here. We are not speaking from some text book case but from personal experience. It may or may pertain to this particular case but based on the news reports I think we have a better chance of understanding that bedeviled young man than those of you who can only quote from some book or clinical study.

Statistics have their place if they are carefully and properly used but personal experience is just as important/ What someone tells me from personal experience is going to stay with me a lot longer than a table full of statistics or even some case book study. Emotions are important. Very important.

Does anyone here understand what I have said about quiet people? You can not send them to therpy just because they are quiet.

Further I wish to point out that in all the situations that come to my mind of bombings, especially suicide bombers, that they are not trying to bomb particular individuals but just general cause as much havoc as they can. It may not be identical but it is certainly related, I watched on live TV one of the planes fly into the World Trade Center. Which particular individuals were targeted?

 

@Nakia: I definitely agree. Putting these guys into therapy doesn't help one bit. It only makes them more alienated, and will most likely stigmatize them even more. At least last years guy had been to therapy, had medication and fat lot of good did that do to him or to his victims.

On another note...Of all the ten victims two were men, a teacher and a student. All of the other victims were female.

This makes it slightly different from othr typical school-shootings. Is it significant. I think it is. The perp had visited one of the women two days prior the incident.

Also notable is that the perpetrator was a second year student, 22 years old and that he did have a relationship that had ended, most likely two years ago and was more or less actively looking for company.

Just makes you wonder, doesn't it. Not your usual case of school-shooting, or is it?

 

Tal, making a small bomb is both easy and private. In one of the more recent incedents here in the US (caught before the act by a friend who ratted him out), police found 10 pipe bombs in the boy's room, but not even the parents had any suspicion of anything. But yes, they are far less personal.

Nakia, as a guy who's gone through this, I think you're wrong that he 'just blew up'. I'd say it's far more likely that he thought very carefully about this, probably for quite some time.

All in all, therapy with the absolute right therapist could do wonders for people like this, but almost anything short of that would ostricize them even more.

 

He may have thought about what he could do but something had to push him over the edge. I've had some very interesting thoughts about what I'd like to do to someone I hated but I didn't do anything.

Yes, therapy would help but it can't be forced on someone especially if there is no history to indicate that might be harmful to theirself or others. I doubt that forced therapy would be very helpful even so.

 

See, I don't think Myyrmanni is a valid argument here. Not a lot of bombings take place in Finland. The perpetrator was a chemistry student or something and build bombs during his free time. That's the only reason he had acces to the building material.
That is so rare that it will, possibly, never happen again.

@NOG "Location: Virginia Beach", martaug "Location: somewhere in the wastelands of america".
What Tal said, US is a *bit* different. IIRC Blowing up tree stumps is illegal here.

 

When in Finland, you're on the south/west coast right?

In inland Finland, both getting access to the materials and the knowledge is something a 10-year-old can do. I know I could have had I understood it back then.

 

Yes, but I'll bet these things manifest differently between men and women. I've never heard of a female going on a shooting spree.

For access to materials, thermite is just aluminum and iron. It hits a water pipe or the like and you've got an explosion more powerful than most of the pipe bombs you see.

I also think we're missing something very important here. I remember a CSI episode about a student who kills another for teasing her older brother (I think that was the one). At the end of it, one of the CSI guys says that, in the end, the victims of bullies survive HS and live on. Every time I see that, I want to add in, "Don't be so sure." For every rampage like this one, I'd guess there are hundreds, maybe thousands of kids who choose suicide. Nakia, I'm guessing this is where most women go, and most men as well, but the rampages are an odd variety of the male 'last resort'.

 

Perhaps you are right, Tal. I don't know many Europeans personally aside from on here, but I do know a lot of people here in Canada who spent many carefree hours of their rural childhoods making little bombs and blowing inanimate stuff up. Most of them I consider "well adjusted" people. It's not considered an indicator of mental instability or a precursor to violent outbursts here.

I agree with you Nakia that you cannot send people to therapy just because they are quiet. However, speaking as a teacher, there are some other markers you can sometimes see in a quiet child that send up some warning signs. The latent hostitlity seeps through sometimes in the eyes, in the writing, in the body language. But such therapy MUST be done in complete privacy and secrecy so that the fellow students do not grab hold of it and make the child's life miserable.

Trouble about the bullies thing is that often they are the ones who are having worse problems -- while there is a part of me that would like nothing better than brutally violent public humiliation (read that -- castration with a rusty knife) for the bullies who tormented me, but I think that sometimes that might trigger THEM into a rampage or a suicide, which would be . . . counterproductive, to say the least.

 

I'm still not really convinced, but If you say so Taza. I have family from Helsinki to Jyväskylä, but not easter or nother than that.

So let's assume some people do know how to make, and or, have access to explosives. That doesn't change the fact that bombings just don't happen here. Shootings do. And if you seriously think not removing handguns is a good idea, then I'd really like to hear an explanation to why the hell not.

 

I have to say that I find all this discussion of how easy it is to make bombs very disquieting. SP is a game board and the majority of people are drawn because of their interest in a game. Turning it into a how to make bombs site could end up getting the Board in trouble. Please be careful what you post.

What are we trying to accomplish in this thread? Commiserate with the families of the victim, understand why the perpetrator acted as he did, suggest solutions to an increasing problem? If we are primarily discussing school shootings [lease note the word shootings. A gun was used as the primary weapon. We can conjecture, guess, speculate but the fact is a gun was used.

Human beings are not simple animals. They are complicated and motivations, knowledge, abilities all vary. exceptions can be found to most generalizations but I will post one. Men and women are biologically different. Their roles in procreation are different. Therefore Nature has geared men to be the hunters and defenders. Woman are food gathers and nurturers. Their reactions to things are different but a woman whose children are threatened can be a formidable opponent.

We can give simplistic answers but that is all they are; simplistic.

1) I am in favor of tougher gun laws but I know they won't solve the problem.
2) I am in favor of proper professional therapy but first the subject must be recognized as needing it and as an ex-teacher I know that teachers must be very careful about how and when they recommend therapy.
3} I am in favor of parents spending more time with their children and finding out what they are doing, what their problems are and just plain loving them but I know of no way I can force them to do this.
4) I am in favor of peer groups be more understanding and welcoming. {side note: Believe me when I say females can be very cruel and rejecting.}

I've probably left out a lot of things and I know that there are no easy answers.

 

It can't be forced also because the circumstances/society/mentality greatly determine this.

In places such as the countries of Central Europe, many parents can't spend time with their children because they are at work (for little money), so they can feed their kids (let alone spending time with them or buying something useful, constructive for them).

In places such as the United States of America, many parents are completely occupied with building their career (including wives, mothers). They earn a lot of money, but meanwhile, they can't spend enough time with their children (which they "compensate" with gifts etc.)

A relative of mine, vice-president of an IT company in the USA, has an American wife (they live there, with their children). As far as I know, the way they raise their children are different from how we (usually) do it here in Central Europe.

 

Trellheim, you are trying to blame an inanimate object for something a PERSON did. If we are going to do that we need to ban cars first as they were resposible for 353.7% more deaths than guns 43,661 vs 12,343(2005 stats from the cdc, latest i can find at the moment)
If you want to include non-fatal injuries, 69,825 by firearms & 4,384,738 by vehicles (over 6,200% more)
You are 63 times more likely to be injured by a car than ever by a firearm.
When canada enacted their rather strict firearms regulations even suicicde rates didn't go down, people just used other methods.
It's just simplistac to think "oh if we ban this evil device, the world will live in peace" never gonna happen because man is to petty to get along with others for long

 

If we are talking about banning guns, then I agree that it's not a good idea, for obvious reasons.

If we are talking about restrictions, then it makes sense (in certain countries where it's not strict "enough").

Either case, your example isn't too apt, martaug. Cars are required for very many people, while guns aren't required, so the comparison is baseless. Guns are actually needed only for a narrow group of people/jobs. One might argue that "everyone has the right to defend himself/herself", but it's already a problem in a country if many people need to keep guns at home to be able to feel themselves secure.

In other words, your example itself (without additional support arguments) isn't appropriate to prove that guns shouldn't be banned, because I'm sure everyone would be happy if those 12,343 deaths wouldn't happen (regardless of the 43,661 other deaths caused by cars).

For example, assume someone keeps a gun at home, because he "has right to defend himself". Assuming a not exceptionally dangerous region/district, it probably has greater probability that a child will find it (and it will end in a tragedy) or that he loses his temper & shoots a neighbour than that he will actually need it. In brief, in a relatively safe country but with a lot of guns at homes, "accidents" are probably more common than cases where guns really need to be used (where they really help). A gun is always a double-edged blade.

To emphasize it again, in no way I support banning guns, but restricting the law where it's too loose is something I find reasonable.

 

Barpnius, my Mother was a single parent. She had to work to feed, clothe and house us but she managed to spend time with me. Even with all the distractions of modern times I think it can still be done/ Parenting is a job and a very important job. Children need love and attention.

martaug, I don't think Trellheim is blaming guns any more than I am. Here in the USA we have to pass a written test and a road test in order to get a driver's license. Personally I think the follow up on that could be improved but that is another thread. Insurance companies charge a much higher insurance rate to young men. I believe the cut off age is 25. Not sure. They good reason for doing this. Generally speaking a 22 year old male is not as responsible as an older man. Of course there are exceptions.

Hand guns are not a necessity for the average person. Outside of law enforcement and the military I can think of only a few reasons for having one. Private detective, possibly store owners, maybe a jeweler who travels/ Home owners do not need them and they are dangerous in a home. I think we had a discussion on this perhaps last year. Oh, a hobbyist who delights in target practice and yes I can understand and relate to that.

If you have bothered to read my other posts you will know that I said I grew up in a household with guns. There were no hand guns other than my cap pistol. I had a BB gun and was given a 25 rifle because it was small and easy for me to handle. We had a 22 rifle, a single barrel shot gun and a double barreled shotgun. Nothing fancy , remember this was in the 40's and 50's. I am familiar with guns and what they can do.

No the gun doesn't choose its target but the person who handles it doe. Making guns hardy to get might not stop violence but it might cut it down some and make someone stop and think. Of course if I seriously wish to kill someone I can figure out a way to do it but why make it easy for me?

edit: Baronius beat me to it and said it better.

 

They need. This is why it would be important for certain parents who focus on their career to realize that gifts, DVD, car etc. don't substitute the love & attention.

I didn't mean that it's impossible in the listed cases, but when the parent works in more shifts, it makes things difficult. It doesn't mean the parent cannot give love and show a good example to the child, but attention and educating the child is a bit more difficult (e.g., the parent is tired/exhausted after more shifts, and can't really focus on more advanced things regarding the child).

 

It's exactly apt baronius. It's an inanimate object in each case that gets blamed for the operators actions.
A directly on point example, washington DC had one of(if not the strictest) handgun restrictions of any city in america for 30 years & yet they still are in the top 5 for firearm murders. Why is that? BECAUSE CRIMINALS DON'T CARE ABOUT LAWS.
What difference is another law going to do? There are already laws against stealing a car, if we pass more will it mean fewer cars are going to be stolen?
It's like prohibition, banning something just creates an underground market for it that has huge profits.
What is funny(in a sad way) is that most of those on this board that are for legalising drugs have no problem trying to umpose the same sort of regulations that they consider stupid & not working on drugs to guns.
What, they are just going to magically work because we have changed the substance(or item) being regulated? Do you not see the hypocricy ?