I think it important to remember that this family is still reeling from the loss of FIVE family members, SIX, if you choose to count NG. Given the current political climate around the gun control debate, I personally can completely understand the point of their statement.
They do not want NG to be another Adam Lanza, the epicenter of the gun control debate. We the public have no idea who NG was, we only know snippets of info about him gleaned from neighbors who admit they did not really know him other than in passing.
This family is grieving their dead, grieving the loss of NG and thrust into the middle of the RAGING gun control debate.
I totally get their statement and why they chose to make it.
NG will forever be remembered by America as that kid who shot his family. He will be held up as the newest poster child for why this country needs radical gun control. He will be vilified, called evil, etc.
In a time of terrible grief, they are choosing to ALSO remember that this kid, who they love, was more than just the sum of his actions on that fateful night.
Their kid brutally murdered several family members. When a person makes a choice like that, that is the sum of who they are. Nothing else really matters unless there is evidence that the person was 100% insane at the time of the killings.
As to the gun issue, what the heck? These parents had a house full of kids, ex-convicts running around the property and a possibly obviously troubled son with "anger issues" (I say possibly because we don't know if he showed any signs of being troubled before this event).
Who the heck has a closet of unsecured firearms in their home under such conditions? You better believe that these killings have everything to do with the gun debate. And this kid as well as the coward who murdered the babies of Newton should be held up as poster children. Perhaps not for radical gun control (which I actually don't think too many are arguing for) but for radical responsibility when it comes to gun ownership! Come on!
I'm not a gun control person but clearly these cases speak to the need for serious responsibility when it comes to guns. There is absolutely no need for a person with children in the home to have a closet full of unsecured weapons. That is ridiculous.
Imo, its not just the playing of video games alone that would make a child snap; its a combination of everything around us.
This world is a dark place; we see war scenes on tv news as if they were nothing - tv, bodies strewn, slight coverings of dead bodies with pools of blood oozing out from underneath; we see crime drama shows all the time on tv, violence in movies.
For example, get a load of this. A movie about witches, and saw this commercial on tv - the voice over said it was rated PG13. this was aired during a family show, too! really? No way I'd want my 13 year old to see a movie about witches!
Beautiful Creatures
Beautiful Creatures - Official Trailer [HD] - YouTube
Our kids are exposed to a LOT of things that desensitize them little by little, day after day, year after year. If this is all they are exposed to, is the darkness and everything that is wrong, and they desensitize to where this is the norm, why are we so surprised that our kids are turning out the way they are?
How many prefer the happy news stories to the ones about the doom adn gloom and the ho-hum, etc? I don't think people realize just how careful you have to be regarding what you expose yourself to in the media, books, tv, movies, violent video games and so on. What goes in eventually comes out.
No, this is not the only reason, but combine the above with someone with undiagnosed mental health issues or a neglected child? Do we really need to ask why and what went wrong? It just seems so obvious to me.
Why are we so drawn to darkness and tragedy? Why is it so glorified in movies, books, video games and every where else we look?
Wait, witches? I dressed like one for Halloween as a kid. I also watched Escape to Witch Mountain and later, the Witches of Eastwick. Was all that supposed to dement me?
Beautiful Creatures seems no different from the vampire movies or Harry Potter fantasy-type films marketed to teens. I see nothing in it that particularly inspires violence or evil. It seems like harmless fantasy to me.
What I'm worried about is the extreme violence and horror of certain video games and movies like the torture *advertiser censored* movies I hear that children and teens go to, such as Hostel or Saw. I think extreme violence excites and inspires people with evil hearts or distorted minds. I do agree that we desensitize our kids in this country. But the desensitization will likely only radically affect kids who already have the propensity to be evil or mentally ill. And a silly fantasy film like Beautiful Creatures has little if nothing to do with desensitization, IMO. That's the least of our worries.
In fact, while I agree that violence and desensitization in general are problematic, I think any one argument - mental illness, better mental health care, better gun control or more responsible gun ownership, child abuse, bullying, violent videos and movies, etc. - is a simplification of the issue. When these cases occur, it is usually a perfect storm of causes.
But I do think there is one thing that would reduce these kinds of mass killings, better than any other possible preventative measure, including limiting gun access, providing adequate mental health treatment and limiting access to violent games and movies: The glorification of these murderers.
Whenever we say their names, write their names, publicize their life stories, flash their photos across a computer or t.v. screen, or call them the macho sounding "gunman", we glorify them. And every time we glorify one of these cowards, we inspire yet another nut or evil creep.
We can go round and round regarding the causes, which is both a logical effect of such horrific murders and an interesting subject to discuss, but i really think that the single most effective means of preventing these awful crimes is the one that is the easiest to accomplish and the one we most steadfastly refuse to employ. And I don't know why that is.
They should be called what they are: Cowards, or murderers or baby killers and never mentioned by name, except perhaps at the very beginning. There should be a social policy to refuse to give these creeps the recognition and notoriety they crave and concentrate on the victims and survivors when those exist.
But I guess, that'll be the day and we will still be wringing our hands as to the causes of these horrible mass murders, 100 years from now. :moo:
