Five questions about shootings at universities

[Snowden]

Five questions about shootings at universities
By Dennis Prager

Question 1: Why are murderers always counted in the victims tally? The day after the mass murder of students at Northern Illinois University (NIU), the headline in the closest major newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, was: "6 Dead in NIU Shooting."

"6 dead" included the murderer. Why wasn't the headline "5 killed at NIU"? It is nothing less than moronic that the media routinely lump murderers and their victims in the same tally.

This is something entirely new. Until the morally confused took over the universities and the news media, murderers were never counted along with their victims. To give a military analogy, can one imagine a headline like this in an American newspaper after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: "2,464 Dead in Pearl Harbor Attack"? After all, 55 Japanese airmen and nine Japanese crewmen also died in the attack.

One can only assume that this mode of reporting murders is part of the larger movement toward non-judgmentalism and egalitarianism. To many Americans in academia, the media, and elsewhere, all the dead constitute a tragedy. Suggesting that some dead are more important than other dead is forbidden.

At the San Francisco Zoo, after a young man was mauled to death by a tiger that had escaped its confines, the administrators of the zoo even lumped a killed animal with its human victim: the Zoo set up a memorial to both the man and the tiger. And, unsurprisingly, given the egalitarianism that now also lumps human beings with animals, the tiger received more condolence messages than the human it killed.

Question 2: Which of these three options is more likely to prevent further murderous rampages: a) making universities closed campuses and increasing the police presence on campus (as the president of NIU has promised to do); b) making guns much harder to obtain; or c) enabling specially trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on campus?

Because political correctness has replaced wisdom at nearly all universities, colleges are considering options a and b. But the only thing the first option will accomplish is to reduce the quality of university life and render the campus a larger version of the contemporary airport. And the second option will have no effect whatsoever since whoever wishes to commit murder will be able to obtain guns illegally.

But if would-be murderers know that anywhere they go to kill students, there is a real likelihood that one or two students will shoot them first, and if in fact some would-be murderer is killed before he can murder any, or at least many, students, we will see far fewer such attempts made. Even though many of these murderers end up killing themselves, they don't want to die until they have first murdered as many students and teachers as possible.

Of course, there is virtually no chance that the uniformly left-thinking individuals who run our universities will ever consider this option. To do so would mean abandoning what is essentially a religious-like conviction that guns are immoral rather than the people who use them immorally.

Question 3: Why are "shooter" and "gunman" used instead of "killer" or "murderer"?

If a murderer used a knife to murder five students, no news headlines would read, "Knifeman Kills Five." So why always "shooter" and "gunman"?

The most obvious explanation is that by focusing on the weapon used by the murderer, the media can further their anti-gun agenda.

Question 4: Why is "murder" never used to describe homicides involved in these university massacres? And why is "murderer" never used to describe these murderers? Why has "kill" become the only word allowed for deliberate homicide?

Some will say that this is because "murder" is a legal term, and until one is convicted of murder in a court of law, the word should not be used.

I find this unpersuasive. If these murderers can be described as having killed students, then they have in fact committed murder. I believe the major reason for the death of the words "murder" and "murderer" has to do, again, with an unwillingness to make moral judgments, and "murderer" is far more judgmental than "shooter."

Question 5: Would the press note killers' religiosity if they were all Christian?

Imagine for a moment that all the mass murderers at our universities were active Christians. Do you think that the press would at the very least note this? Of course it would, and it would be right to do so.

Yet, to the best of my knowledge, all the recent university mass murderers were secular. Is this worth noting? And if not, why not? Of course, the answer is that few, if any, in the mainstream media would find such a thing worth noting and would likely bristle at its mention. To nearly everyone in the media, the secularism of all the murderers is a non-sequitur. But if they were all active Christians, the same media people would hardly view that fact as insignificant and unrelated.

The fact is that nearly everyone in the mainstream media is secular and therefore cannot imagine associating secularism with anything negative. Secularism is presumed to be all good. But in truth, secularism, a blessing in government, is not a blessing in the lives of most individuals. Now, one can no more blame these college murders on secularism than one could blame Christianity if all the murderers were Christian. But in neither case would it be insignificant.


JWR contributor Dennis Prager hosts a national daily radio show based in Los Angeles.


http://jewishworldreview.com/0208/prager021908.php3

[Snowden]

As I mentioned elsewhere, my oldest son is a Catholic priest at NIU and his two children are students there. If the shooting had taken place on Wednesday at the same time instead of Thursday, my grandson would have been in the hall for one of his classes. My granddaughter knew three of the murdered students. I use the word "murder" for this crime; I can't imagine why it's taboo in the press. If they had a child murdered in such a manner, I rather imagine the reporters would think of it as murder.

There was no background check on the murderer; none. When I bought a rifle a few years ago, my husband and I both had background checks before we were able to buy the weapon. The ammunition was not sold to us until the rifle was in our car; we bought it at Wal-Mart, and the proper procedure was followed.

This young man had a background that should have warned off anybody selling him firearms. He had been in a mental institution for a year; he had joined the Military and been discharged because of mental instability. He bought six guns, some from the same seller on the internet who sold guns to the shooter at VA Tech last year. Selling firearms on the web should require the same background check as should be required by the state.

I do support the Second Amendment, but I think a history of mental instability should be mandatory in those background profiles, and I think the background check should be required nationwide.

This wouldn't stop the murderers, but it may help stop some of them.

The police chief in DeKalb is known as the best in the country, my son told me. He was the one who trained the Iraqi police and he is excellent. The response of the police was within two minutes of the 911 call -- but those two minutes were all that murderer needed. If the students were able to carry weapons, I wonder if there would have been anybody killed at NIU last Thursday -- or if only the murderer would have been taken down.

I believe the ROTC should be a requirement in all the universities; training how to use weapons and that the student soldier would have the ability to be armed. This was never needed before, but it certainly is now.

Of course, I believe in mandatory military training anyway. The crime rate in Switzerland as compared to that in other countries of the world, especially in Australia and Great Britain, certainly points to that as a necessity.

It's obvious to anybody who really thinks about it that laws forbidding citizens to own guns means only the criminals would have them. Yet we have people pushing to do that here in spite of the Second Amendment. Why not train people to use guns and rifles instead of forbidding them to honest people?

[BrianK]

I have a three questions.

Was the murderer a student and didn't he have a permit to carry?

What will prevent anyone that carries from snapping ?

How did our society get to this level of violence ?

Of course I know that prevention from snapping isn't possible. I'm not to comfortable with the idea of guns being the solution to stopping mass murder. Personal protection I can agree with. But then it's back to those that carry for personal protection are subject to snapping.

I think there are a lot of sceanarios both pro & con that could be thought about. This is one, the computer age. The ability of hackers to access a list of approved C&C students and faculty.

For the most part dummies are not planning attacks, mainly though I've noticed. When a whacko decides they want to act, quantity isn't the consideration the act is.

[Snowden]

BrianK: I have a three questions.

Was the murderer a student and didn't he have a permit to carry?

Hi, Brian. The shooter had been a student at NIU, but I understand he was not one at this time. He had done post graduate work there. I don't think he had a permit to carry, and he was carrying six guns.

What will prevent anyone that carries from snapping ?

That's the weak point about the students being able to carry, of course. Anybody can snap, or lose their temper. If they are immature, some would resort to using a weapon in such a case.

How did our society get to this level of violence ?

Bob and I were talking about that last night. If you watch TV, everything is violence and sex. Indiscriminate violence, indiscriminate sex. What people refuse to accept is that movies and TV are no longer based on life, it's life that is copying movies and TV. What the children see is what they believe is normal and all right to do. After all, it's with their friends or in their homes.

I put at least a good part of the blame for our culture downgrade on the heads and shoulders of those who make the movies, those who pay for them and put them on the air. Part of the problem is that children seem not to be monitored in what they watch any more. We have a new culture of "latchkey" kids; they can get this stuff on TV and on their computers.

Whether from stupidity or laziness, children appear to be raising themselves, and that means civilization itself is in dire straits.