Watched this Nova episode on spree killers

[gejohnston]

http://video.pbs.org/video/2332614200?starttime=117000

While it talked about specifically shooters within the US,
reminded me of a quote by German sociologist Wilhelm Heitmeyer after a spree murder in a Dutch mall a couple of years ago.

Among young people who resort to violence, there exists an intense desire to regain control over their own lives. For years they've asked themselves who needed them, where they belonged, but they received no answers to those for them very important questions. In such circumstances, shooting people in public can give a wonderful feeling of power and self-confidence, because you become the one with the power to decide who lives and who dies. And then you accept the less heroic moment--dying between the checkout lines of a supermarket--into the bargain.

Yes it was discussed here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x401308

One kid said he bought a gun for sixty bucks. He didn't get it from a straw purchaser, gun show, or flea market. Neither did the guy he bought it from.

[Witan00]

1. Everybody in the country should watch this episode

I can relate all too well to what people like Andy Williams and Dylan Klebold go through, to the point that it annoys me when things like this happen and people ask "oh my, how could this possibly have happened?"

Unless we endeavour to recognize the symptoms and intervene in these kids' lives early, so they don't sink deeper and deeper into these depths of depression and isolation, then these mass killings are just going to keep happening

Of course, I have the feeling that our society won't deign to dig the cotton out of their ears anytime soon