With some interest, being a former nursing student myself, I read about the wacko ex-nursing student who went to his Christian college and shot a bunch of students, apparently at random. He didn't find the college administrator he was looking for, so he settled for anyone in sight. This is just one of many cases around the country of people that feel like they have no options career-wise or otherwise in their life, so they figure that life in prison or the death penalty is not too big a price to pay for extracting their revenge against the cruel, cruel world.
Such pointless killing indicates a failure of the imagination. After all, it is still possible for a man to retreat to one of the remote wildernesses of the world on any of the seven continents (perhaps excluding Antarctica) and live off the land, abandoning society altogether. One does not "have" to be rich, famous, loved, admired, or respected. Certainly the primitive and half-naked tribes of the world would concur.
Years ago, suicides might have hollered "Goodbye, Cruel World!" as they jumped off a multistory building, but nowadays, some people don't want to walk into that dark night alone. They want company. They feel that if their life is in ruins, why not share the suffering? Spread it around a bit, let others feel the pain they are feeling.
To be sure, the world can be difficult for those without connections, money or any kind of support network. The social safety net is inadequate in many respects. Some people are satisfied with becoming homeless and begging for loose change, while others are willing to work for next to nothing in exchange for food and shelter, while still others exhaust every possible avenue, legal or not, to try to get ahead. However, those already suffering from mental illness, such as severe or recurrent depression and anger, and who have frequent experiences of suicidal ideation--imagining, visualizing and yearning for the termination of their life--for this group of people, the added impetus of financial, social and familial ruin may push them to consider suicide. Remember, there is still no health care for a large group of people in the United States, and many Americans don't want the poor to get any health care, either. So, mental illness above all other illnesses remains unaddressed, and those who are crazy are apt to become more so. Meanwhile, firearms are easy to obtain.
Once one has decided upon suicide, then other options, evil ones indeed, present themselves. The individual who has decided upon suicide has less to fear from the death penalty or indeed any consequences. The widespread easy availability of guns makes the scenario illustrated by the wacko ex-student at the Christian college in California all the more common and frightening. One does not require any combat skill, courage, nor any physical strength to kill, because the weakest and most incompetent fool can pull the trigger of a powerful firearm.
Many people believe the answer to the murder epidemic lies in gun control. However, there is more to this particular puzzle than just gun control. Birth control also is important. If there is no longer much need for workers--and that seems to be the case due to the astronomical unemployment rate of 20 - 25% in the U.S. (the 8% figure is a lie)--then people should stop having babies altogether, until such time that good jobs become available again. I think the time has come for people to consider getting their tubes tied. Just forget about having children, because the children probably grow up to be poor or jobless in today's economy.
Apparently, there are a lot of people in the world whose work, whose very being, is unwanted, undesired or at any rate woefully underpaid and under-appreciated. These people feel left behind by the Zeitgeist. They feel abandoned by the world, outcast and alienated, and rightfully so, because they do not have a career and do not have a profession and do not have any proper or respected place in the world, nor do they have any obvious means of obtaining the same. If they had not been born in the first place, then the problem would not exist. Instinctively, they seek to address this issue by reducing the population of fellow workers through crude, random and evil deeds.
Killers of any stripe should be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law, but that does not address the underlying problems in the social fabric. Punishment addresses one individual and sets a proper precedent and creates deterrence against similar acts. My suspicion is that many killers would, if given the choice, select the death penalty in preference to life imprisonment, so I do not believe that the death penalty is a solid deterrent for all individuals. Again, those suffering from various mental illnesses, including depression, will not be deterred, but may even be attracted by the prospect of the death penalty. I believe that repeated incidents of gun violence are symptomatic of larger issues in society that need to be addressed through effective and meaningful measures, either conducted by the government or by private industry. There should not be a wasted class of people that are shut out from all opportunity and all hope; but if there is to be such a class, then society had better take all possible measures to reduce the birth rate in this class and curtail future members.
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