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DaRk AnGel : Why Home : April 2007 : If We.....

If We.....

You know I felt guilty about what I received today. A new 12 gauge shot gun. A double barreled beauty. (I am beaming like a new papa) Also a Glock 17 9mm pistol with three 17 round magazines. I have reason to buy these. And if by chance anyone knows where I can get a pre 1900 Winchester rifle please let me know. And an ak 47 is something I am also pondering. The last two would be for collection purposes only.

My new toys arrival seemed sullied in the wake of the shootings at Virginia Tech. What a horrible disaster. MY sympathies go out to all. I have been obsessed with these school shootings. They should never have happened.

I want to tell you what I think are the real reasons these school shootings occur. There are two things at fault here, IMHO.

First and foremost, it is not gun control. Guns are already out in the streets, millions of them. Just pass more laws, close all the gun shops and then we can spend billions a year on a GEA. You cannot make go away what is already there and all that will occur is a huge black market, higher taxes and there will still be plenty of guns around.

What causes these kids to snap?

I think that we have to look at commonalities amongst all the shootings. The kids that have done these things all across the country share some traits. In all cases I have read they were the oddballs. Those that their peers chose to throw away. They were isolated, lonely, bullied in many instances, laughed at... Who created these monster children? We did. By ignoring those that are quiet, or a little different. By standing by while one person gets bullied by another or others. By not reaching out of our circle of comfort we allow their loneliness and their sufferings to occur.

In high school, well in my days there were hippies and jocks. I was neither. But one night the hippies were sitting in a circle and doing their thing, and the football team, walked up and one particularly brave soul started pushing the smallest and quietest member of the hippies around. It is easy to be a bully when you have 20 people backing you up. I interceded. There was no fight because in size I was to the jock what he was to the hippie. It was not an act I even thought about. I just did it. Someone had to. Sure I was threatened. But I always have not cared much what others felt about me.

Also in High School there was an oddball guy. I mean there were times that he even creeped me out. Rarely taking baths, he walked the campus always in a long wool trench coat with his hands in his pockets, and with a black beret on his head. He had no friends. Everyone shunned him. I didn't. He was an interesting character to say the least but a very talented poet. I wonder where he is today. The campus was cruel to him. And what made things even worse was that this was a boarding school there was no way to run. Again it was not like, I better talk to him, its my job. It just came naturally to me. I remember often his talks of violence. I remember the pain in his eyes - of being lonely, shunned.. The uncool amongst the cool.

I have no doubt - in today's world, if things were the same that he would be a shooter at a school.

So society creates these monsters. By judging, and then the treatment dished out to these people that are a little different. Having been subjected to isolation,I speak from experience when I say it is by far the worst of all of it. Everyone wants to belong.

The second thing I feel and think is the entertainment industry preaches violence. There was a time on TV where people were not killed. TV was less violent. In my teens, our music was about drugs, sex and rock and roll. Our generation was about love. A lot of today's music is about violence, and hatred. And the video games, where kids play killing people, over and over and over…. But then again in my days it seemed that parents had more time to care for their kids. Today everyone is so busy finding their own momentary escape from feeling and thought, we have become so shallow. What are the kids to learn when everything they are exposed to has violence in it?

Sure the boy two days ago, has to take the blame. He did not seek out counseling, he did not force himself into group situations. He stayed in the corner quietly screaming that he was lonely. And no one cared. Some say they tried to be a friend to him. Well why did they give up? Even surrounded by 25000 students, he was alone. Wasn't there anyone that cared enough to be a friend even if he did not want one? The kid that smelled at my high school felt he was not good enough to be my friend. And as many times as he tried to rebuff my offers, or evade me, well, I am pretty stubborn when I see misery.

I am sick of this world in so many ways.. I will rejoice the next step even if it is nothing. If we all only took care of those within our realm, including the strangers, the different people, the sick and affirmed.. If we gave more than we took. If we played scrabble with our kids at night instead of them sitting alone in their room with either violent games played while listening to music that supports killing, or if we only had one TV so that what was watched could be monitored. Those video games on the Xbox, et. al. are hypnotic and trance like. What is the subconscious hearing over and over?

If we…. Only cared as much as we claim to…