Oh how I hate not having anything to do but work and wait until I have to slouch off to my music lesson. Wasting time used to be such fun when I was actually having proper school, I'd end up mindlessly watching movies or playing retardedly simple tunes on my bass and then wondering why I was repeatedly up until 1am furiously typing out english essays due in 8 hours time. But during exam leave, procrastination is difficult to achieve. I'd end up having bouts of guilty feeling every time I'd leave the turmoil that is British politics to stare at my emails, which is something nobody needs to feel. I'd come home after a few hours with a friend cursing them for dragging me away from my EDEXCEL approved poetry anthology. For someone that regularly holds education with a mixture of scorn, cynicism and dread, the frequent subconcious need to study was a quite frightening feeling. Thankfully, though, that time has passed, and I am free to waste time again... if it weren't for Global Citizenship.
I'm just starting to design a presentation I'm required to do by the moaning eejits at the UN stronghold in Finland, in exchange for a piece of paper proving I'm a "well-rounded induvidual" as apposed to a complete fruitcake. Global Citizenship is one of those stupid formalities that a international school such as mine would use to prove to snub-nosed, posh international bonces (such as the ones that frequent the UN) that their students are the best in the land at caring about current issues such as gay rights and famine. Now, I have nothing against people who feel like they must deal with these issues, but as soon as they start trying to take over my school time, I get a bit tetchy. How on earth am I supposed to get through my exams, attain straight A grades, write articals on my chosen issue AND keep a healthy social life at the same time? Whoever thought up this "certificate" must be the earthly incartnation of the Hindu god Vishnu- as many arms as it takes to do all these tasks at the same time.
Anyway, my chosen issue is school shootings- or rather, the causes of them. I have a slight affiliation with this, because according to Everybody And Their Mum, anybody who so much as stands next to a violent video game or a Marilyn Manson album must have homicidal tendencies. I have yet to experience these tendancies, despite the fact I own every Manson album and enjoy games that involve violence, so I think Everybody must be a bit wrong.
I've noticed, in fact, that a lot of the kids that raid their grandfather's arsenal and blow away their school are often quite normal. Take Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, for example; these guys killed 13 people and injured 23 others at Columbine High School in Colorado. They were both perfectly normal guys, with normal lives etc. Klebold was a depressive however, and was lead on by Harris, who by all accounts was a psychopath, who, if not for the massacre, would have probably gone on to do something much worse later on in life. These were probably the causes for their decision to shoot up their school.
On the other hand, other shooters have different reasons; one simply got into trouble at school. Then there's the famous quote 'I just don't like Mondays" from Brenda Ann Spencer, another shooter , as immortalised in the song by the Bay City Rollers.
The main point I'm trying to make is that people don't decide to kill just because a song or a game makes it sound good, or they dress or act in a certain way. In some schools in America, it has been made law that schools are allowed to regularly search the lockers of goth kids, simply because the fashion they follow is associated with homicide in schools. How is that fair or even productive? While they're searching Obsidian Blackbird McNight's locker, Generic Teenager #5 could be loading up his (or her) shotgun. That's the point I hope to get across in the presentation.
Then of course, there's how one would go about preventing school shootings. The obvious answer that immediately screams out at me is gun control. Unfortunately for Americans, at least, gun control is a word that just doesn't exist in certain areas of the US, particuarly in Texas, Alabama and other parts of the Bible Belt. The removal of the 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms) would certainly control gun crime in America, but it is also something that it highly unlikely to happen unless the Bible Belt suddenly became liberal. Another possible way of stopping school shootings would be to spot the killer before they killed and subjected them to massive amounts of therapy. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, it is virtually impossible to pick out a likely killer unless they make it obvious themselves. Even then, the therapy might not work. The current method being used to prevent shootings is the consistant blacklisting of games and musicians- pointing the finger of blame at them, basically. This is in no way productive, as it is forcing those of us who are more easily persuaded to focus completely on them, rather than on other possible causes. It's also dangerous to the parents and friends of the killers themselves, as it is providing them with a way of forcing the blame of the child's behavior onto something else when really they should be considering what they could have done to prevent it.
It seems, then, that there is no immediate way of stopping shootings without breaking into the US 2nd Amendment. The only thing that parents could do to help stop more shootings from occuring is to take a good look at their child's state of mind and behaviour and help them.
That's just my 2 cents on the issue, anyway.
This was a public service announcement from Clockwork Monkey. You may now return to your business.
No comments:
Post a Comment