Seung-Hui Cho is basically the whitest name out there.
So one Korean-American kid breaks the statistics?
Thanks.
Considering the number of school shootings and the number of his victims, I’d say it and Ferret Herders’s earlier reference to Brenda Anne Spencer together do a pretty good job of refuting the idea that school mass shootings are “synonymous” with white males, yeah.
I don’t think you can compare this type of shooting to the school shootings. Most school shooters are mentally ill.
The motivations are different as well as the frequency of occurrence.
Not all school shooters are sociopaths, but I believe many are. The emblematic school shooting of this era, Columbine, was perpetrated by a sociopath, Harris, and his emotionally troubled follower, Klebold.
Based on the information we have now, I feel confident in saying that Edwards is also a sociopath, and killed for the same reasons as Harris - self-aggrandizement and a need for stimulation.
You’ll notice in the article on the Harris and Klebold, that Harris’ personal diaries were full of diatribes about all the people he hated. They correspond fairly well to Edward’s hateful tweets.
There’s more than a little evidence that Edward’s motivations were gang-related. Killing for acceptance to a group is different than killing to go out in a blaze of glory.
Harris’ hatred has less of a racial aspect than Edward’s.
They may have both been psychopaths but the motivations don’t seem the same to me.
Random thought. I wonder if more of the school shooters are more of the wounded child type of mentally ill and less the psychopathic.
Yes, really. I would not ever want to be alone with anyone who thinks like you do. I honestly be in fear of my health if I did something you thought was wrong. The fact that you not only think those thoughts but thought nothing of revealing them here indicates that you think wanting to torture people is normal. Not just when you are angry and aren’t thinking straight, but all the time.
The whole idea of avoiding cruel and unusual punishment is even in our constitution, for goodness sake.
Go away. Please. Your bullshit has already been debunked, and your continued instance that things work is only due to sadism.
Work on keeping them from being sold in the first place. You can in fact stop them at that point, if the NRA had not deliberately lobbied to defund the federal organizations that could do so.
We may not be able to stop you from having them, but we can keep them from being sold.
Oh, and stop and frisk isn’t illegal. It’s only illegal when it’s racially targeted. See the recent Supreme Court judgement. You can always be checked for contraband, guns included.
so what does Obama have to say about this? Not a “racial” killing? Jessie Jackson’s comment was a hoot-it should be “frowned upon”. “Rev.” Sharpton says “the system worked”.
At least we know where these champions of civil rights stand!
Not very different, no. Joining a gang is all about self-aggrandizement and stimulation, in addition to the monetary rewards. Gangs as a whole and individual gang members routinely commit acts of violence, including murder, as a way of strengthening their reputations. Glory. Fame. Even infamy is better than being unknown. It’s almost a cliche of gang life for members to talk about the increase in respect they gained after they joined the gang.
Not necessarily:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcripts_of_"The_Basement_Tapes"_of_Eric_Harris_and_Dylan_Klebold
It appears that the other people on Edwards’ and company’s kill list were black. Of course, they could have targeted one person for one reason, and other people for different reasons. Edwards may have been aware that killing a white person would bring him more fame (infamy) than killing a black person.
I definitely wouldn’t call Harris a wounded child. Klebold, maybe. Edwards obviously wouldn’t qualify either. His followers might. I’m reluctant to give them any kind of pass, though.
The perps were arrested shortly after the crime was committed. They’ve been charged, and will most likely be convicted. Are you maintaining that the system failed? If so, how?
Always? Without a reasonable suspicion? (Not a rhetorical question. I’m not up on the case law.)
And for all you know, her son might have done exactly the same things before he murdered someone. She’s her mother, and probably never envisioned in her worst nightares that he could do something like that. Exactly like you. She’s in disbelief, and it seems to me that’s the case of almost all parents of criminals. Give the woman a break.
If harsh sentences were an efficient deterrent…we wouldn’t need harsh sentences. Nobody thinking rationally would take the risk of spending, say, 10 years in jail just to satisfy an impulse. People acting this way think they won’t be caught or don’t think at all.
Criminals who could be deterred by harsh sentences would be those who act thoughtfully, balancing risk and reward. White collar crimes or such things, for instance. And even then, a higher likelihood of being caught would probably be a better deterrent than a harsher sentence.
Exactly. No one fucked up enough to want to murder someone just for kicks is going to think twice due to the possibility to spending 40 years in jail versus a mere 15. And a white collar criminal is going to be deterred by a strong possibility of *any *prison time. The only valid reason to lock someone up for 50 years or whatever is to protect society from very dangerous people who are likely to reoffend (and not everyone who commits even heinous crimes is likely to reoffend). And if you’re going to lock someone up for that long, it pretty much needs to be life without parole, because at that point they’re probably going to be incapable of handling freedom.
lThe fact is, these boys were incapable of handling freedom already…can anyone give any rational reason they should ever be on the street again, ever? A few people think that giving them a medal for good conduct before and after they senselessly killed a young man who had a promising future would be appropriate. I think they should be quickly and publicly killed by the state for the crime of premeditated murder with no extenuating circumstances. Where is the logic of any other fate for them?
Actually, no, no one thinks that.
There are tons of logical reasons to be against the death penalty. But like I already said, they are too dangerous to ever be let out of prison, probably. Definitely the ring leader. Probably all of them.
Taking everything into consideration, that is what should happen, under our current system.
Anything that involves witness testimony, even from a cop, should be allowed to work its way through the courts for decades if needed. If the accused is then released, pay them for their time of incarceration, at least. But when the culprit is obvious, the crime is heinous and the object is to make sure no one else thinks that killing for fun is a way to make a name for themself…quick, sure, severe punishment is what we need.