School Shooting in Finland, at least 7 dead

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Well last time I think we had this sort of discussion I think I went and said that this sort of stuff does not happen in Europe as often as in the US and while that might still be true, it has happened here today and incidentally just a dozen of kilometers from my hometown.

In English: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7082795.stm
In Finnish: http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/oikea/id74359.html

Youtube once again played an important role in this as the shooter published several videos of himself there and there are tons of different kinds of texts about him around the internet when the Police are yet to even confirm who the shooter was.

So I ask you all, will this become some new trend? Is it so that instead of committing suicide or just isolating themselves from society mentally instable teenagers will go on killing sprees knowing that atleast then they will get themselves heard? And who is to blame for it anyway? Parents? Youtube? Guns? Society? Authorities?

My personal belief that we better get used to this, depressed teenagers have found a new trend and school shootings seem to give them the final blaze of some twisted glory.

EDIT: 8 dead confirmed, seven pupils and the principal who was a middle aged woman. One injured with a bullet wound and several have recieved minor injuries while breaking through glass while escaping. The shooter himself tried to shoot himself but apparently failed and is currently in the hospital in critical condition with possible critical wounds to the head.

EDIT2: Well the shooter died in hospital so the final deathtoll of the shootings is nine persons. Five boys, two girls the prinicipal and the shooter.

 

I place all the blame balanced squarely between the parents and society in general. We've developed a society where the individual pretty much has to fend for himself in the teenage years, without any help, equitability, or fairness at all. Many actions that, in the real world, would end bullies in court or jail, get tossed off as nothing serious in elementary, middle, and high school. Kids are told to 'grow a thicker skin' and 'just ignore it'. Much of this I blame on the parents of the bullies (for letting their kids act like that) and the parents of the victims/shooters (for not standing up for and supporting their vulnerable children), but I think the majority of the blame goes to society in general for seeing this kind of thing as regular or acceptable.

In other words, I see this as an end result of an increasing level of agression, violence, hatered, and depravity being allowed to fester in the youth.

 

I believe hat NOG got it right here. Moral relativism results in kids having no moral compass so things like this become more and more common. Parents are the primary culprit followed closely by society. The two are linked, of course but in the end the parents have the ultimate responsibility to instill the kind of values that would prevent such an incident from occurring.

 

You're seriously going to blame moral relativism for school shootings?

You realize that you're a relativist, too, right? You don't think so? Let's play a game; is killing 100,000 people wrong? Unless you're a psychopath, your answer is yes. Was the nuking of Hiroshima justifiable?

If you answer yes, you're a relativist.

 

Ok. I can accept that despite the sarcasm. I do think that there is a general decline of moral values (and common sense for that matter) these days whatever the reason and that this kind of thing is the result.

 

Define moral values.

Because not too long ago, discrimination based on gender or race was A-okay. If we've lost that and traded it for...oh, I dunno, the acceptance of same-sex relationships, I think we've managed a net gain.

 

Who's to blame? Or more accurately, what are the causes that escalated into this?

What bugs me is how this and every single one of these happenings is always handled almost completely from the individual psychological viewpoint. "He was crazy and got bad influences, 'nuff said" and social psychology is almost completely forgotten. There's normal, but to me unacceptable group dynamics at play in this, but what is unusual is how this individual finally broke down. Usually people who are excluded from the group only get depressed and they waste away, commit a suicide, or fall into obscurity and most likely develop a chronic mental illness.

The causes for this happens every single day, in almost every school. People can be so cruel to those in which they see any weakness. The tragedy is two-fold; the causes include the group for excluding him, and the fact that he didn't know where to look for help, or to look for help at all. The whole thing is sad beyond measure, there's plenty of pity for everyone in this, and ultimately we're all in this together.

Things like this is bound to happen when retribution is made possible, when the power ratios between a group and an individual excluded from the group are evened up by introducing means to kill. Who's to blame? I'd say more likely what's to blame. I'd say the blame falls for human nature. I'd say the blame falls for the notion which every now and then enters into the minds of men, the line of thinking which says that those who are deemed unfit should be cast away and that cruelty is something which you can do nothing about or that it should be accepted as a fact of life, tolerated, or even welcomed as a means to an end.

 

Another person inspired by Columbine, I imagine. It amazes me how much effect that has had on the world. Imagine if plan A had have succeeded and they'd blown up the entire school - would all the lonely kids be doing that?

So yeah, I'd say that this is pretty much a cultural event these days, inspired by those infamous trend setters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold...

 

I'm a bit sceptical about the Columbine effect, Aik. I think it wasn't such a big issue out of the US, and while he might have known of it, it wasn't the main thing that drove him to the shooting. I don't think he had a single motive, of course - the burden is probably shared by most, if not all, the causes that Morgoroth mentioned.

Also, I've heard something and want to ask if it's the case as it may relate (somewhat) to the occurence: a friend of mine mentioned that during the winter months, Scandinavian countries have a relatively very high percentage of suicides. Would that be true? He attributed it to the negative effects on psychology prolonged periods of darkness may have.

P.S.: Here's a quotation about that guy from Morgoroth's article: "Going by the username Sturmgeist89, he called himself a "social Darwinist" who would "eliminate all who I see unfit... death and killing is not a tragedy... Not all human lives are important or worth saving."" Is it bad of me to feel good about decidedly not feeling the same way about things as this guy did? It feels like I'm having a character building moment out of a tragedy, and in effect cheapening it.

 

I think The Shaman hit the nail in the head. This is a combination of all those things, and that is what makes the society so powerless to act. It's not just about guns, they can make homemade bombs and in fact a university student caused a serious explosion in a shopping center here a few years ago killing few and injuring many, so obviously banning guns won't stop these things from happening. Then there's the internet which is an excellent place to write your testament and get you the publicity afterwards which is obviously what this guy sought after. Also we have the parents who just can't hold a leash on a 18 year old anymore, the guy was essentially an adult. Granted the problems started probably earlier but there are limits to what a parent can do to a free thinking individual. Then there is society which probably should pay more attention to what is going on with our children but then again we will never have enough resources to do it to the extent that we'll completely ensure that this kind of cases won't happen. These days teatchers are too busy and class sizes too large for them to notice.

My point being that there is nothing that we can do about it, and that's what makes it so infuriating. Socialisation will allways fail on some individuals and some will be left outside. Before they were excluded and suicide was the probable path out, now there are different methods and different ways. Instead of hanging yourself quietly in your room you can now make a final statement and express your disappointment for the entire world.

We do have a high suicide percentage especially for young men, higher I think than in any other Scandinavian country (Finland is actually not a Scandinavian country btw). We used to have the highest percentage in the world but I think we have been surpassed in that, can't remember which countries are ahead of us though.

I think this might be a point and in my opinion November is the most depressing month but I really do think this guy had been thinking about this for a long long time so it was hardly anything that came out of spontanious depression caused by winter darkness.

 

Sad, sad thing. The man ruined many lives that day. All the friends and families of those that died.

Also, this infuriates me: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article2828084.ece
The man obviously knows nothing. Sure, it might be dark here, but we don't exactly all walk in the darkness, tight-lipped and alone and cry ourselves to sleep, waiting for vacations so we can flee this country.

 

http://www.aftonbladet.se/stockholm/article1210329.ab (In swedish, sorry)
Two boys - 16 and 17 years old - in Stockholm, Sweden have been charged for conspiracy to murder for acting threathening after the event in Finland. According to the article the threaths were at against the principal personally and not the school. They were apparently inspired by the shootings in Jokkela and Columbine. Is this just paranoia or will this trigger other kids to perform similar acts. Personally I'm not sure if these boys were really going to go through with this or not. But I do believe that this has shown us europeans that this is not just an american thing.

 

The Shaman: Well, my post was a little hyperbolic, but honestly - if it wasn't for Columbine and the similar shootings following it, I think it would be more likely that he'd just go and commit suicide quietly. He, like a lot of the others that were doing it for similar reasons as the Columbine shooters, seem to lack creativity in their grand attack to rid the world of subhumans and go down forever in history. They're following a formula now. Guns+videos+killing people at school+commiting suicide at the end = win.

I think you're probably understating Columbine a bit - I know that here it certainly had a huge impact and given how Americanised Western culture has become, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to know that it's impact has been felt through the rest of the world as well. Plus, IIRC, the killer explicitly mentions Columbine in one of his videos.

So yeah, I really do think that Columbine basically set off a trend here - I'm tempted to describe it as a subculture, of sorts. It's weird, from my perspective anyway, to watch the ripple effect that they had on the world and on a number of other lonely teenagers.

Of course, I'll admit, Columbine does fascinate me to a degree. Perhaps I'm just seeing things through those lenses.

(also, is it just me, or do the Columbine copycats all seem remarkably insane? I mean, no disputing that the Columbine shooters had their personality disorders, but they were entirely sane about it. The copycat shooters that I can think of all sound entirely deranged, ranting in a pretty bat**** sort of way)

 

I've noticed the same, Aik. There's plenty of insane in all the copycats of Columbine.

 

Aye, but what drove them to insane, that's the question. When trying to profile these people the only strong correlation between all of them is that 71% has experienced that they've been bullied...

Nobody can stand torture day in and day out without losing it at some point...

 

Morgoroth, I think you are seriously underestimating what people can do. Here in America, the idea that parents should actually raise their kids has largely fallen by the wayside (though it appears to be making a comeback), but I had hoped that was just a local phenomenon. Has it really spread that much to Europe, as well?

Also, I don't think it was just the fact of being bullied, either. I think a great deal of it has to do with HOW people are bullied nowadays. I was serious when I said many of the things bullies pull in schools these days would land you in jail if you had done it to anyone else, anywhere else, even at the same age, but somehow the fact that it happened in the school environment means it was 'innocent fun' or 'nothing serious'.

I mean, just look at the incident that started the whole Jena 6 thing. I don't know how much of this has made it out of America, but aparently, in a racially charged city, a couple of black students started having lunch under a tree that a bunch of white students usually ate under. A couple of days later, there are nooses hanging in that tree. I think there may have been a note, too. If that happens in the work place (and it has several times since), the worker responsible gets fired and can face criminal charges. In school? A couple days suspension should teach them.

Iku's right, no one can withstand torture over long periods of time (years, even a decade or more) without a strong support mechanism and not break. Thus, there are two things to blame: the torture and all responsable for it, and the lack of strong support mechanisms and all to blame for it.

 

NOG I'm not all that convinced. This guy was 18-year old. Of course one could reason that all he did was because of a bad childhood and bad parenting but I'm not fully buying that argument, not that it could not have contributed to the fact. There have allways been lousy parents and there have allways been troubled/bullied children and that has allways had an effect. Up until this point though, they haven't had a chance to pull off things like this, now they do and it shows.

 

I'm not convinced that the idea that parents should raise their kids had ever fallen by the wayside. The "latch key kid" phenomenon, if that's what you are referring to, was borne largely of necessity. Raising a family on one income is really hard in this day and age....nor is the phenomenon anything new. Just 100 years ago, parents used to leave their 4 year old kids in charge of their houses while they (and their kids that were old enough to work) went to work.

 

And the kids themselves were put to work not much later than that. Poverty has always sucked, but it sucked especially hard for an especially large segment of the population circa 1900.

Other than that, I'm really not getting the 'parents don't think they should raise their kids' thing. I mean, really not getting. I don't have data to suggest a position either way (well, okay, the data tells me daddies in da hood don't stick around, but the mommies still raise the kid), but all my anecdotal evidence tells me that's not correct.

 

I was surprised to find that Finland is such a heavily armed country. It had never occurred to me before. It turns out we have the third highest guns per capita in the world.

In a way I was disappointed when the guy died. It would have been interesting to see his reactions if he had failed to kill himself and would have had to actually live with the consequences of what he had done.