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School Shootings


Riverwind

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Daddyhominum's comments about bullying are very appropriate here. This has become widespread in our society, particularly with the the spread of the internet. It is now possible to broadcast defamatory comments about someone to hundreds or even thousands of people with the click of a mouse - complete with a digital photo, and often without them knowing what is being said or by whom. Who cares whether the comments are true, half-true, or completely false - just pass it on for a good read to lighten the day of your loved ones. Why should they question it? After all, they got it from someone they trust! Watch the target squirm as his life is filled with assault, vandalism, non-verbal and verbal harrassment. What good fun for friends and family alike.

The news reports I have read say that Gill, the shooter, like the guys at Columbine, was targeted by bullying. People who are targeted by bullying frequently seek refuge in the outcast community.

It is about time we started to think about the true cost of bullying and start bringing bullies to justice. This is simply another form of assault and, when it becomes a constant in somebody's life, the law of unintended consequences may very well come into effect.

This aspect of the Gill shootings needs to be investigated seriously and thoroughly. Those who are looking about to lay blame for this tragedy, should spend some time focussed on the bullies in Gill's life.

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I just heard on the news that the police shot him in the arm and then he turned his gun on himself. Who knows???

Moving his dead body is messing with a crime scene.

This is somewhat puzzling isn't it? Maybe the officers on the scene thought that there was more than one shooter?

Was Gill still alive after being shot and moved outside for his own protection? Just a guess.

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There wasn't much posting on this topic because the shooter, apparently, wasn't Muslim.

There are many things that pique peoples' interest, and these days that one tops the list.

I'm not sure whether you were trying to bait me or Argus, but I guess I could field this one.

On a politics forum, there just wasn't much to say about it, at least until such time as somebody reached for the first "we need more gun control!" or "the gun registry is a failure!" takes. As various commentators and politicians have now done. Or at least until such time as there was some information available about his background and his motivations.

Would there be special interest in this case if the shooter had been a Muslim? Assuredly. And justifiably so.

One of the first questions being asked when this story broke was whether it was related to terrorism. That's not just paranoid little kimmy's mind at work, that was national media figures at work. On both CTV Newsnet and CBC Newsworld, I heard reporters say words to the effect of: "no word yet on whether there is any connection to terrorism."

If a Muslim had been the shooter, a key question would be whether the attack was connected with *organized* terrorism. For 5 years + 4 days, the nightmare scenario has been that a terrorist gunman or bomber (or several) entering a college or sports stadium or crowded transit terminal or shopping mall and executing people in large numbers. If the day comes when terrorists decide that hapless bystanders in Canada's public places are targets, that nightmare would be realized. Wednesday, many people were worried that that day had arrived.

I suppose one could ask whether Kimveer Gill could also be considered a terrorist. Perhaps the effect at the college was the same (or perhaps not; a real terrorist would probably have had some training and probably killed a lot more people.) The difference, however, is that were the attack carried out by an organized terrorist group, we would be facing the threat of more attacks.

If the shooter had been a Muslim, we would be waiting on pins and needles to find out whether the attack was connected with organized terrorism. With what we now know about Gill, it seems extremely unlikely that the attack is connected with any sort of cause or organization at all.

I saw no evidence of unfair bias directed at Muslims connected with this incident. I saw no message board posts saying "I bet the shooter is a Muslim" or any such assumptions; early eyewitness descriptions of the "black trenchcoats" quickly brought to mind the Columbine massacre and had people jumping to the premature (but ultimately correct) conclusion that the shooter was connected with the goth subculture.

And even in situations when a lone Muslim has been behind shooting sprees, any connection of their actions to religion seems to in fact be downplayed, even when in a situation it might be relevant.

-k

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I think we are all ignoring a major threat to public safety with these vampire goth types. There was a recent case in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where a 23 year old Jeremy Stienke and his 12-year old (that's not a typo) killed her parents and brother. They were linked to the same website, and this violent vampire culture. Their rights as a group aren't protected under the charter, and their ideals seem to worship violence and death. Why can't we have the authorities shut down this threat? It's like a loosely associated gang of society haters, they need to move on or go into treatment centres. Way too dangerous to have these mentally sick people in everyday society, this has been shown by these attacks. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to conform, but when people are proud to be part of a culture that worships such anti-societal values, it's tough to be tolerant towards such behavoir. How can any sane person be so obsessed with death.

It's one thing to dress in all black, do your hair all funky and be a man wearing makeup. But to devote your life to the following of vampires and death, it's definitely a mental illness.

We're also ignoring that Canada seems to have a higher rate of these school massacres than the US. Whether this is become US media underplays their events, I don't know. But I haven't heard many colleges/universities in the States being attacked recently by crazy goth gunmen. Why does our stronger gun control result in higher rates of these types of killings, yet lower rates of typical everyday shootings? Just a question I thought I'd throw out there.

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Would there be special interest in this case if the shooter had been a Muslim? Assuredly. And justifiably so.

One of the first questions being asked when this story broke was whether it was related to terrorism. That's not just paranoid little kimmy's mind at work, that was national media figures at work. On both CTV Newsnet and CBC Newsworld, I heard reporters say words to the effect of: "no word yet on whether there is any connection to terrorism."

If a Muslim had been the shooter, a key question would be whether the attack was connected with *organized* terrorism. For 5 years + 4 days, the nightmare scenario has been that a terrorist gunman or bomber (or several) entering a college or sports stadium or crowded transit terminal or shopping mall and executing people in large numbers. If the day comes when terrorists decide that hapless bystanders in Canada's public places are targets, that nightmare would be realized. Wednesday, many people were worried that that day had arrived.

I suppose one could ask whether Kimveer Gill could also be considered a terrorist. Perhaps the effect at the college was the same (or perhaps not; a real terrorist would probably have had some training and probably killed a lot more people.) The difference, however, is that were the attack carried out by an organized terrorist group, we would be facing the threat of more attacks.

If the shooter had been a Muslim, we would be waiting on pins and needles to find out whether the attack was connected with organized terrorism. With what we now know about Gill, it seems extremely unlikely that the attack is connected with any sort of cause or organization at all.

I saw no evidence of unfair bias directed at Muslims connected with this incident. I saw no message board posts saying "I bet the shooter is a Muslim" or any such assumptions; early eyewitness descriptions of the "black trenchcoats" quickly brought to mind the Columbine massacre and had people jumping to the premature (but ultimately correct) conclusion that the shooter was connected with the goth subculture.

And even in situations when a lone Muslim has been behind shooting sprees, any connection of their actions to religion seems to in fact be downplayed, even when in a situation it might be relevant.

The question, to me, is when people look for 'root causes' and why.

Yes, you're correct - an organized terrorist act by a group is a different sort of crime and might warrant attention based on that alone. If it's a singular act, though, then does it matter ?

I'm asking these questions as much of myself as of you.

I think that there may be tiny amount of empathy that we feel within a large amount of contempt for these people. If it's a school shooter, for example, I think we naturally empathize a tiny bit more - subconsciously - than with a foreigner who is acting out of rage over a far-away-conflict.

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If it's a school shooter, for example, I think we naturally empathize a tiny bit more - subconsciously - than with a foreigner who is acting out of rage over a far-away-conflict.
I agree.

The underlying truth that we might fear and not want to admit is that the school shooter is a product of possibly the school.

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Daddyhominum's comments about bullying are very appropriate here. This has become widespread in our society, particularly with the the spread of the internet.

Bullying was widespread in the sixties, too - the eighteen sixties. Bullying has always been widespread, particularly in schools.

So what has changed?

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So what has changed?

The isolation of video games and the Internet?

No, I don't think that's it.

It's true that kids are far less socialized than they were generations back. When there was little on TV, no video games, no computers, well, you either read a book or you played with other kids. Most played with other kids. They learned to deal with all manner of personalities, some pleasant, some not so pleasant.

But I don't think that's the principal cause. There has always been bullying and cruelty towards each other, and kids either put up with it, or fought back. They might have hated their tormenter, but I don't recall any of them blaming society for it and gunning down or trying to gun down someone OTHER than their tormenter. Actually, I don't recall any of them going after their tormenter with guns either, though I'm sure it happened. There were an awful lot of guns around, after all.

I think it has more to do with a lack of character devlopment, with a lack of strength. Parents used to do their best to instill in their kids the need for self-reliance and inner strength. Kids weren't taught to expect an easy life, or that anything bad that happened to them was grossly unfair. Maybe we've made life so damned easy for kids today, with parents doing their best to solve every problem, that kids don't learn how to cope, how to stand up for themselves, how to conquer smaller problems, and then larger ones. When faced with something as "traumatic" as bullying, they aren't psychologically equipped to cope, and resent the world for not coming to their aid and stopping it. Blaming the world, they then go by their roll models - any number of machine-gun toting Hollywood stars, and "teach them all a lesson."

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I think it has more to do with a lack of character devlopment, with a lack of strength. Parents used to do their best to instill in their kids the need for self-reliance and inner strength. Kids weren't taught to expect an easy life, or that anything bad that happened to them was grossly unfair. Maybe we've made life so damned easy for kids today, with parents doing their best to solve every problem, that kids don't learn how to cope, how to stand up for themselves, how to conquer smaller problems, and then larger ones. When faced with something as "traumatic" as bullying, they aren't psychologically equipped to cope, and resent the world for not coming to their aid and stopping it. Blaming the world, they then go by their roll models - any number of machine-gun toting Hollywood stars, and "teach them all a lesson."

Guess we'll find out at some point what the motivating factor was for this guy in Montreal. It may not be any one factor. It's too bad that his family were not able to get him some counselling. They must have known that he wasn't coping.

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I think it has more to do with a lack of character devlopment, with a lack of strength. Parents used to do their best to instill in their kids the need for self-reliance and inner strength. Kids weren't taught to expect an easy life, or that anything bad that happened to them was grossly unfair. Maybe we've made life so damned easy for kids today, with parents doing their best to solve every problem, that kids don't learn how to cope, how to stand up for themselves, how to conquer smaller problems, and then larger ones. When faced with something as "traumatic" as bullying, they aren't psychologically equipped to cope, and resent the world for not coming to their aid and stopping it. Blaming the world, they then go by their roll models - any number of machine-gun toting Hollywood stars, and "teach them all a lesson."

Guess we'll find out at some point what the motivating factor was for this guy in Montreal. It may not be any one factor. It's too bad that his family were not able to get him some counselling. They must have known that he wasn't coping.

They never did find out what was the motivating factor for Columbine. The early suggestion was the two were driven into murder by bullying, but that apparently, after investigations, turned out to be untrue. They really weren't bullied much at all.

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There wasn't much posting on this topic because the shooter, apparently, wasn't Muslim.

There are many things that pique peoples' interest, and these days that one tops the list.

I'm not sure whether you were trying to bait me or Argus, but I guess I could field this one.
I was somewhat surprised that no one started a thread on the topic on this forum. I think the explanation is that many of the posters here are in western Canada and the incident seemed far away and people didn't know about background details. If I can make a comparison, I don't know where Mayerthorpe is.

I first learned about this when I saw a large silent, crowd around a TV screen in a shopping mall. Everyone recognized the street scene portrayed. That's simply not the case for people in Edmonton. Later, at a checkout counter, the cashier told me that she was a student at the college and had left about 10 minutes before the gunman arrived. The French forum immediately had a long and informed thread on the topic. In Montreal, people are walking with a slightly different look in their eye.

I suppose one could ask whether Kimveer Gill could also be considered a terrorist.
I have begun to wonder about this. Anarchists threw bombs and killed people at the end of the 19th century both in Europe and America (usually political leaders were the target but not always). It is hardly new that lunatics kill people they don't know and have never met. Here's a case from 1966. This link decribes the activities of an anarchist (terrorist) in the US around 1910.
And even in situations when a lone Muslim has been behind shooting sprees, any connection of their actions to religion seems to in fact be downplayed, even when in a situation it might be relevant.
How about Sirhan Sirhan, a Muslim who killed Robert Kennedy apparently because of his support for Israel during the Six Day War?

I don't believe Marc Lepine was a practicing Muslim and his death note was a diatribe against feminists, not a religious tract.

The singular difference between "terrorism" and this tragedy at Dawson College (now referred to as un cas isolé) is precisely the organization involved. One lunatic acting alone is one thing; a group of lunatics acting together is something else again. New technologies of course make the potential for mayhem enormous.

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They never did find out what was the motivating factor for Columbine. The early suggestion was the two were driven into murder by bullying, but that apparently, after investigations, turned out to be untrue. They really weren't bullied much at all.

The shooter's classmate, Brooke Brown, wrote a book in which he stated he believed bullying to be the motivation. Dr Elliot Leytons study on serial killings puts bullying as an first factor in a killers profile. Barbara Colorosso's book does the same.

See:

http://www.amazon.com/No-Easy-Answers-Behi...e/dp/1590560310

What has changed? When I was a boy guns were very common place but pistols were unknown. To get an automatic rifle, you bought a semi-automatic and filed a pin down on some guns. As it only held 16 rounds they were gone before you could hit anything.

If you had trouble, academic or behaviorial, you left school and went to work

Dr. Skinner suffered broad approbation for his seminal work on human behaviour and his ideas were not experimentally developed and proven until well into the 1970's and work is still progressing. Konrad Lorenz, Nikko Tinbergen and the study of animal behaviour was limited to a few unknown scholars and no attempt to relate evolutionary behaviour to man had been undertaken.

Children who committed crimes were believed to be monsters, witches, or possessed and were treated like adults by the courts. Nonetheless outstanding murder trials captured the public interest as when Leopold and Lowe were tried in Chicago.

Recognition of serial murder and/or mass murder as a special category of behaviour was not even speculated about. People died, disappeared and there was no national linkage of police or crimes. Criminal investigations lacked almost all the forensic tools they possess today.

There was no sharing of records; no collating of data. No one knew what happened in the next province. I remeber when a young man killed his parents and siblings in Alberta in the fifties and all of the prairies trembled in fear they would his next victim. Hitchhikers regularly killed people who gave a ride to the wrong guy.

Everything has changed about solving and treating murder. Not much has changed the numbers of murderers.

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They never did find out what was the motivating factor for Columbine. The early suggestion was the two were driven into murder by bullying, but that apparently, after investigations, turned out to be untrue. They really weren't bullied much at all.

The shooter's classmate, Brooke Brown, wrote a book in which he stated he believed bullying to be the motivation. Dr Elliot Leytons study on serial killings puts bullying as an first factor in a killers profile. Barbara Colorosso's book does the same.

Yeah, that never made any sense to me. If you're lashing out at bullies then you should be killing the bullies, not small, weak geeks and such. Where did they do most of their killing? The library. Right. That's a notorious home of big tough bullies. They killed whoever they came across, without any interest or care in who they were.

Columbine killers were psychopaths

Motive was hate

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From jdobbin and Argus' posts above, they pointed out social factors such as isolation and values as having an impact. The unsettling thing about those ideas is perhaps that we can't blame the government for that, or start a new program to deal with it - the responsibility is on us.

I'm going to pay closer attention to the MSM and see whether they're more likely to suggest programs and top-down policy initiatives, just as an experiment.

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If you're lashing out at bullies then you should be killing the bullies, not small, weak geeks and such.

So you agree with me that bullies need to be investigated and prosecuted. Right on dude.

Why don't shooters target their bullies? If you watch 'Bowling for Columbine' you will see a couple of guys assembling a ritualized response. At some point, they just decided to react. My theory is that people who 'go postal' take it as much as they can and then suddenly explode. Unfortunately most of them die before they can elaborate their side of the story. These are all people who do not have the equipment to deal with what life has handed them. It's time to recognize this and provide safeguards. My suggestion is to target the bullies.

As for what has changed. Why not look at the killing power available to individuals in our society? Don't think this only involves guns. There are now a number of cases on record in both Canada and the US of people who have driven their cars into crowds of people. How are you going to stop that? It's time to deal with the problem at the source.

------------------------------

Be there or be square.

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I checked out a few articles in the Globe and Mail. There was an article about the theories of Mark Ames, who submits that the world is simply a crueller place, and seems to place blame on globalization et al. Jan Wong imlpies that Quebec language laws are a factor. Jeffrey Simpson's piece calls for calm, and quotes statistics (Ames' ideas would benefit from more evidence) to show that things aren't as bad as they seem.

The editorial states that the current legislation wouldn't have prevented the disaster, and asks for dialogue to come up with better gun control policies.

As I suspected, the paper tends to take a top-down view - ie. how policy changes can prevent these incidents - rather than dobbin and Argus' more ground-level view.

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I have to agree with Argus here,

It's true that kids are far less socialized than they were generations back. When there was little on TV, no video games, no computers, well, you either read a book or you played with other kids. Most played with other kids. They learned to deal with all manner of personalities, some pleasant, some not so pleasant.
socialization skills are far less than what they used to be. I personally blame the 'consumerist culture', because it breeds (perhaps unintentionally, as a bad by-product) isolationsim and severe (perhaps even harmful) levels of individualism.Yeah, High school occasionally sucked really hard. At a time when I was most impressionable, too. Suicide rates are high in teens, and fleeting thoughts of it are probably near 100%

Probably the biggest thing in this is the desire to impress upon others your qualities, your thoughts and feelings (though we do this in different ways, from the screaming infant to the hack typing on a political forum ;) ...), and desire to know what we look like through the eyes of the others, filtered, of course, through our own delusions of grandeur. "What will they think of me when I'm gone?" is a universal thought, I think.

We now live in a consumer driven world where the 'once spectacular' is the 'barely adequate' within months, if not sometimes days. If you are 'going out', what better way than in a way that will be remembered by the most?

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Its a troubling subject, i believe the more we talk about it, it may encourage others to do the same thing.
It is sad but true - this guy decided to shoot kids up in a school because of the notoriety given to past incidents like the Columbine shooters. When Warhol made his prediction about everyone getting 15 minutes of fame he probably never considered that people would be willing to kill for it.

Personally, I think the media should look in a mirror before spending a lot of time speculating about access to guns, goth subcultures or bullying. This guy would have done nothing if he was not ensured of instant post-mortem celebrity status. We have publication bans to protect victims of crimes like rape or child abuse - I think its time that we have publication bans on mass murderers. The public does not need to know what his name is, where he lived or what he looked liked - we can have a meanful discussion about the crime and what to do to prevent future crimes without knowing that information.

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I checked out a few articles in the Globe and Mail. There was an article about the theories of Mark Ames, who submits that the world is simply a crueller place, and seems to place blame on globalization et al. Jan Wong imlpies that Quebec language laws are a factor. Jeffrey Simpson's piece calls for calm, and quotes statistics (Ames' ideas would benefit from more evidence) to show that things aren't as bad as they seem.

The editorial states that the current legislation wouldn't have prevented the disaster, and asks for dialogue to come up with better gun control policies.

As I suspected, the paper tends to take a top-down view - ie. how policy changes can prevent these incidents - rather than dobbin and Argus' more ground-level view.

Wong has a house on the Bridle Path complete with Philippina maids. The last time she had a clue was when she was living in Beijing and Deng was in charge. Before that, she had turned state's evidence and had a Chinese family banished to a life of hardship. End of story.

Simpson is a much more intelligent reference. Wong has no balls.

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However there is a lot Montreal police did learn. After the horrible Lepigne massacres of women in previous shooting in Monteal, Montreal police studied and learned from it. Under the old procedures, police arriving at the scene of a mad man shooting and running loose, would hold back, form a secured zone, and wait for Swat.

Rue, you fail to mention that purely by chance, there was a police car with two cops parked in front of the college at the time this forcené entered the building. (The cops were there for a drug-related investigation. The entrance to the college is one of Montreal's several drug markets.) I know the building and from what I can gather, this guy didn't get very far and was followed by the police from the moment he started shooting.

The short video filmed by a student inside with a cell phone shows the police pointing a gun inside and near the entrance to the college.

I agree rue that this good fortune of the cops being there, combined with the policy of intervening immediately saved many lives.

I am very curious to hear the story of these two cops and what they did. Students describe a situation where the cops and the shooter argued with each other. It appears that the cops shot him in the leg but that's not clear to me. The police I know (MPs in fact) always said to me that they would go for a head shot in such a situation.

There's another point which intrigues me. The body shown lying beside a police car in front of the college was the shooter - it was eventually covered in yellow plastic. How did it get there? It seems that the police dragged the body out of the building and left it there. Although I have seen reports that the shooter tried to leave the building and fell there.

This strikes me as odd.

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Overall, I disagree that there is nothing to do in the face of such threats.

You've pointed out how a change in policy can save lives. Perhaps arming and training security guards in places with high traffic is a good idea.

The fact that this shooter was killed so quickly will deter other lunatics from doing the same.

The WTC offers another similar lesson. In 1993, they learned how to evacuate the building. In 2001, many lives were saved because people knew how to evacuate quickly.

There are lunatics, fanatics and crazy people in this world who do bad things. We should not throw up our hands and fatalistically accept this. Instead, we deal with it as best we can.

Finally, you mention living in Israel with these threats. I agree completely. In my experience, it is important not to succomb to fear. Life is for the living.

The reports now state the police shot him in the arm and he shot himself in the head which is what killed him. The reports seem to say what you said, the police were engaging him in dialogue (which they are trained to do) but some students said they couldn't shoot because of all the students running that could have got hit. Looks like they held off shooting ealier to avoid killing students.

I have also been told by my friends who are police that as much as they may train with guns, they don't use them a lot at all, and so at the best of times, using a gun is unusual, and they tell me hand guns are not acccurate and to completely forget what we see on t.v. I was told its one thing to aim at someone, its another to actually hit them, especially if they are moving.

I guess this will all be part of the reports the police will compile and decipher and again learn from.

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I actually agree with Argus on some of his points. I think if we have to analyze it is fair to say that the common theme with such shooters is that they are young men who did not learn to channel their anger, aggression, frustration, what-ever you want to call it. Yes I do see it as a character flaw and deeply related to how we men see ourselves as men.

Now the question is...how do you get a guy like this Gill early enough when he starts to begin to rot from the inside, and get him into an environment where he needs to learn to develop pride, self-esteem, discipline,

dignity, learn there are things far greater then the individual. Learning to be disciplined and turn rejection and defeat into positive lessons is what we are talking about.

All I can say is for me, what helped me as an agry teen-ager and I mean very angry and troubled, was organized sports, organized group activities where I had to look after animals or other people and didn't have time to dwell on myself, and some good teachers that did not judge me and simply accepted me at face value. I personally think young men need sports and organized activities to channel their anger and aggression.

I personally learned how to use a rife but was never fascinated by them for the simple reason the person who taught me how to use one, hunted out of necessity. He made it clear it was an essential tool not a toy.

As well my father's generation who were all in the military never talked about weapons like they were toys.

This fascination with guns I do not get.

I also agree with the poster who says it appears those first two cops at the scene were very cool under the circumstances and saved lives by not shooting too early. I couldn' t imagine being those first cops at the scene with everyone running trying to figure out when and how to take this guy down. Talk about a lousy job.

I also throw this out to you guys. For me every time I hear someone say terrorism is an acceptable or understable reaction, i.e., in discussions about political conflicts whether it be in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, etc., I can't help but think-isn't this the kind of mentality condoning and encouraging the notion that violence is acceptable? Is this contributing to making some people feel that engaging in terror is somehow politically acceptable? I mean some of the idiot responses to this fool, seem to suggest they think he is some sort of political hero.

Could it be the trend to portray terrorists as victims is helping fuel this?

Now as for the comments why Montreal-some have theorized because Montreal likes to do things outside, i.e., cafes, a lot more areas where cars are not allowed, this may explain why such things happen.

I think that is nonsense.

Some people have pointed out Quebec has higher suicide rates with men then anywhere else in Canada and some have speculated this is tied to a group psyche that still has not yet accepted the defeat of the French by the English.

I say nuts to all those theories. I say its a coincidence it has been in Montreal and not say Toronto and that it could happen anywhere at anytime.

I tend to prefer Argus' comments that we have to look at this is an individual who failed to emotionally develop properly and while we can come up with all kinds of theories, it begins and ends with the individual and the kind of family upbringing he had and perhaps any genetic predisposition he had to a mental illness.

Listening to his mother, I am beginning to wonder a bit. She said they knew he had guns but didn't see anything wrong with that. Now look. I don't want to pick on these parents, but please. Your kid has a machine gun and you think that is ok?

Sorry but I think the parents were in denial long before their son went ballistic and I think they will have this guilt on their hands knowing they could have done something a lot earlier.

I don't know about you but if my kid shows me a machine gun, shot-gun and hand gun and says not to worry its for taget practice, I would be just a tad more curious what they were up to.

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Our universities are filled with social science professors inventing theories to explain human behaviour. Internet forums too. Whatever the source, there's an ad hoc nature to these theories.

Why don't shooters target their bullies? If you watch 'Bowling for Columbine' you will see a couple of guys assembling a ritualized response. At some point, they just decided to react. My theory is that people who 'go postal' take it as much as they can and then suddenly explode.
That may have been the case in Columbine but in Montreal, this guy was over 6 foot tall. By all accounts, he was not a loner in high school and he was not bullied.
There was an article about the theories of Mark Ames, who submits that the world is simply a crueller place, and seems to place blame on globalization et al.
Crueller? Where does Ames situate the Holocaust and the behaviour of Amon Goeth? In any case, psychopaths are hardly a creation of the 20th century.
Jan Wong imlpies that Quebec language laws are a factor.
I saw that article. She forgot to mention Denis Lortie who killed people in the National Assembly. Incidentally, there's a reverse Quebec theory similar to Jan Wong's. The lunatics who commit these crimes in Quebec are not "real" Quebecers because they haven't assimilated into the majority culture. (I suspect Wong heard that theory and adjusted it for a Toronto audience.)
Its a troubling subject, i believe the more we talk about it, it may encourage others to do the same thing.
It is sad but true - this guy decided to shoot kids up in a school because of the notoriety given to past incidents like the Columbine shooters. When Warhol made his prediction about everyone getting 15 minutes of fame he probably never considered that people would be willing to kill for it.
Two more theories. He was imitating others, or he wanted to be famous. (Did I have this right? The media goads people to commit atrocities?)
I personally blame the 'consumerist culture', because it breeds (perhaps unintentionally, as a bad by-product) isolationsim and severe (perhaps even harmful) levels of individualism.
WTF? It's now the fault of Walmart?

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It seems to me that people use their own current fetish as an explanation. That's superstition. We, in the West, live in an analytical age where we (particularly those with a social science background) have the presumption to be able to analyze and explain everything. Well, we can't. The universe is governed by probability and random forces play a role.

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I also agree with the poster who says it appears those first two cops at the scene were very cool under the circumstances and saved lives by not shooting too early. I couldn' t imagine being those first cops at the scene with everyone running trying to figure out when and how to take this guy down. Talk about a lousy job.
In fact, it was a gunfight almost from the start. The police were afraid to fire because of ricochets and the number of students around. Gill took a position in a nook in the cafeteria, near the entrance, that meant he was cornered and had nowhere to go, but where it was also difficult for the police to aim for him. Gill apparently tried to take a hostage. The police shot him in the arm and then he killed himself.

The police were very courageous to confront him and I'm surprised they were not injured. People have said that Gill seemed drunk at the time. I don't know guns but apparently the Beretta he used looks menacing but in fact is not a high-powered rifle. All these factors explain the low casualties. If the police hadn't been there, the results would have been far worse. Dawson is Quebec's largest college and he arrived in the busiest part at the busiest time of the day.

What caused so much panic were the reports that he was not alone. This meant the SWAT teams had to go through the entire college and check every classroom and office. Many students and teachers were barricaded for several hours waiting for the all clear. There were other rumours of a gunman in shopping malls across the street. All the cell phones stopped working, as did the 911 service.

I have also been told by my friends who are police that as much as they may train with guns, they don't use them a lot at all, and so at the best of times, using a gun is unusual, and they tell me hand guns are not acccurate and to completely forget what we see on t.v. I was told its one thing to aim at someone, its another to actually hit them, especially if they are moving.
I agree. My little experience with guns tells me the same. A long time ago, the Hollywood sound for a gun was decided to be a "bang" and now that's the sound added to movies. On the one occasion I fired a pistol, I recall how heavy it was and how much the recoil hurt.
All I can say is for me, what helped me as an agry teen-ager and I mean very angry and troubled, was organized sports, organized group activities where I had to look after animals or other people and didn't have time to dwell on myself, and some good teachers that did not judge me and simply accepted me at face value. I personally think young men need sports and organized activities to channel their anger and aggression.
I think the school system, in general, fails boys and helps girls and I think this problem has been getting worse.
I also throw this out to you guys. For me every time I hear someone say terrorism is an acceptable or understable reaction, i.e., in discussions about political conflicts whether it be in the Middle East, Sri Lanka, etc., I can't help but think-isn't this the kind of mentality condoning and encouraging the notion that violence is acceptable?
The lesson I take from this is that there isn't a big difference between this lunatic and bin Laden. Our only defence against thugs and pyschopaths is to confront them together. That's why we have armies and police.

I don't hear too many people saying "violence is not the answer" now. The violence of a policeman's bullet prevented this tragedy from being far worse.

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