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A Heretical Opinion on School Shootings
Feb. 16th, 2018 07:37 amI did not give a shit about the most recent school shooting in Florida – a fact I struggled to keep secret from collaborators in (ha, ha, ha) real life and imaginary playmates on social media.
Seems to me there are effective measures that can be taken to prevent these types of incidents. And if they’re not being taken, it’s because these types of incidents serve some sort of agenda. No, not an organized agenda – even my conspiracy theory tendencies don’t take it that far – but some collective unconscious psychological agenda. How many people die in these types of shootings every year? Perhaps they’re all sacrificial victims in some cosmological sense. Plus there’s all the ad revenue the media gets to generate playing, Ain’t It AWFUL?
###
The very best movie ever made about school shootings is Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. Elephant is a very, very strange movie that offers up no psychological insights into the tortured souls of the killers and no theories about American culture or guns. The film moves excruciatingly slowly. Practically nothing happens except at the end of the movie, a lot of people are dead.
Here’s the thing about violence: It’s exciting. Even when you don’t approve of it.
You know the old phrase: The glory of war!
If you really want to stop violence, you take the glory out of it.
That means that the media would have to stop making the killers in these types of shooting famous.
Because I suspect more than anything else, since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris fast-tracked their way into headlines and history, the perps in these kinds of incidents see shooting up a school as their ticket to fame. Everyone will know my name! they think.
And everyone does!
For a couple of days, at least.
Florida’s gun laws may be wonkier than those in other states, I don’t know. The accounts I’ve read seem to indicate this kid’s weapon acquisitions were by the book.
The kid was also banned from carrying knapsacks on to school property. Although I have no idea how that particular embargo could be enforced. Presumably, there are many points of entry on to high school campuses, and beleaguered school budgets can’t pay for guards at every one.
But here’s a heretical opinion for you:
I have no doubt whatsoever that events like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland are influenced far less by lax gun laws than they are by CNN, MSNBC, and the nightly news drivel on the three dying non-cable networks that glorify these killers under the pretense of explaining them.
If the powers that be really wanted to control school shooting sprees, they’d work something out with the media. Stop the blitzkrieg beams of focused attention during which the world is supposed to stand still.
If the little shits didn’t think shooting up a school was a way to get famous, I guarantee the incidence of such incidents would plummet.
###
In other news, I continue in a Mood.
I had two Tax Bwana clients yesterday whose 2017 earnings were in excess of $130,000.
Frankly, people who make that much money should be going to HR Block, not availing themselves of fr-ee-ee-ee services designed for the working poor.
It was 60 degrees out yesterday. Springlike! The limpid sun hanging in the winter sky!
I went for a s-l-o-w trot part way across the Walkway. (It closed before I could complete the circuit.) I am so out of shape!
When I got home, I discovered I’ve been pre-qualified for yet another car loan. Now that I’m a real human girl again, my credit score just keeps going up and up and up.
So I spent the evening cruising cars, working desultorily on the Art Installation, reading Edith Wharton ghost stories, and streaming Monk episodes. Monk seems to be the only filmed entertainment I can watch these days without wanting to throw up. I think it’s the Randy Newman theme song.
Seems to me there are effective measures that can be taken to prevent these types of incidents. And if they’re not being taken, it’s because these types of incidents serve some sort of agenda. No, not an organized agenda – even my conspiracy theory tendencies don’t take it that far – but some collective unconscious psychological agenda. How many people die in these types of shootings every year? Perhaps they’re all sacrificial victims in some cosmological sense. Plus there’s all the ad revenue the media gets to generate playing, Ain’t It AWFUL?
###
The very best movie ever made about school shootings is Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. Elephant is a very, very strange movie that offers up no psychological insights into the tortured souls of the killers and no theories about American culture or guns. The film moves excruciatingly slowly. Practically nothing happens except at the end of the movie, a lot of people are dead.
Here’s the thing about violence: It’s exciting. Even when you don’t approve of it.
You know the old phrase: The glory of war!
If you really want to stop violence, you take the glory out of it.
That means that the media would have to stop making the killers in these types of shooting famous.
Because I suspect more than anything else, since Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris fast-tracked their way into headlines and history, the perps in these kinds of incidents see shooting up a school as their ticket to fame. Everyone will know my name! they think.
And everyone does!
For a couple of days, at least.
Florida’s gun laws may be wonkier than those in other states, I don’t know. The accounts I’ve read seem to indicate this kid’s weapon acquisitions were by the book.
The kid was also banned from carrying knapsacks on to school property. Although I have no idea how that particular embargo could be enforced. Presumably, there are many points of entry on to high school campuses, and beleaguered school budgets can’t pay for guards at every one.
But here’s a heretical opinion for you:
I have no doubt whatsoever that events like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland are influenced far less by lax gun laws than they are by CNN, MSNBC, and the nightly news drivel on the three dying non-cable networks that glorify these killers under the pretense of explaining them.
If the powers that be really wanted to control school shooting sprees, they’d work something out with the media. Stop the blitzkrieg beams of focused attention during which the world is supposed to stand still.
If the little shits didn’t think shooting up a school was a way to get famous, I guarantee the incidence of such incidents would plummet.
###
In other news, I continue in a Mood.
I had two Tax Bwana clients yesterday whose 2017 earnings were in excess of $130,000.
Frankly, people who make that much money should be going to HR Block, not availing themselves of fr-ee-ee-ee services designed for the working poor.
It was 60 degrees out yesterday. Springlike! The limpid sun hanging in the winter sky!
I went for a s-l-o-w trot part way across the Walkway. (It closed before I could complete the circuit.) I am so out of shape!
When I got home, I discovered I’ve been pre-qualified for yet another car loan. Now that I’m a real human girl again, my credit score just keeps going up and up and up.
So I spent the evening cruising cars, working desultorily on the Art Installation, reading Edith Wharton ghost stories, and streaming Monk episodes. Monk seems to be the only filmed entertainment I can watch these days without wanting to throw up. I think it’s the Randy Newman theme song.
