Purdue University Shooting

YorkeDaddy · 01-22-2014, 01:05 PM

Yesterday there was a murder at Purdue University in the electrical engineering building, just a couple hours from where I live (I go to Indiana University) and where a pretty large number of my best friends go to school.

In fact, to make it hit even closer to home, my very best friend and the other member of my band cloudcover is an engineering major at Purdue and spends most of his time in the exact building where someone was just murdered yesterday. He wasn't at the building during the shooting, but that's not really the point.

It's a terrible truth, but shootings like this happen quite often, but when they happen this close to home; this close to the ones you care about, it instills a fear in you unlike anything in the world. What makes it even scarier is that no one can establish a motive. I can only speculate, but if this was really just a random killing for no real reason...it's hard to want to go outside knowing that something like that just happens.

Anyway, there's not a whole lot of discussion possible here, but this is a current event and one that I'm very familiar with and that's part of what this board is about so I figured I'd let it all out here. ****'s not cool.

**Frownland** · 01-22-2014, 01:10 PM

Rogert Ebert had a great say on the subject:

Quote:

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

I agree with him to an extent, because this is a very newsworthy event in America. Maybe as a way to circumvent the "blaze of glory" attitude, names of the killers should not be released. I don't know how well that would mull over, though.

YorkeDaddy · 01-22-2014, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

Rogert Ebert had a great say on the subject:

I agree with him to an extent, because this is a very newsworthy event in America. Maybe as a way to circumvent the "blaze of glory" attitude, names of the killers should not be released. I don't know how well that would mull over, though.

yeah it's hard either way. do americans really need to know about every shooting? they're major events that unite us as a nation, so i think the answer to that is yes. but at the same time, plastering the face of every shooter on every website like the media has done for each of the past few major shootings might convince another troubled individual to do it themselves just like ebert suggested

Forward To Death · 01-24-2014, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

Rogert Ebert had a great say on the subject:

I agree with him to an extent, because this is a very newsworthy event in America. Maybe as a way to circumvent the "blaze of glory" attitude, names of the killers should not be released. I don't know how well that would mull over, though.

Hmm, I think people have the right to know who does what crime. If you know the victims, I think you should be able to know the ones who committed the crime as well. I think, and some people might be a little irked by this, they're the more important subjects. They're the ones you can learn from. Not that the victims aren't important, or that they didn't have something important to say, but they're just normal people who dealt with their problems in a healthy, normal way.

I think the root of the problem is usually just mental illness. These kids are delusional, or they're fixating on certain ideas and losing touch with reality at some point. For example, one of the Columbine shooters compared the mission to his favorite video game, Doom, so I definitely think it played a part in his mindset. I don't think video games are at fault, though. You'd have to read some of the killers' journal entries, but they were both very dark creatures. Harris was very angry, and obviously wanted to make a statement to society, whereas Kleibold was just very depressed. I don't think you can really blame video games, Quentin Tarantino movies or the media for any of that, but people will continue to say that's what does it. If you watch too much TV, if you play too many video games, spend too much time on the internet, or listen to the wrong kind of music, you're not living in reality.

It's sort of a chicken-egg thing. I think it's much more logical that these guys were mentally ill before they started playing video, seeing as though there are no studies that can prove that any forms of entertainment can cause mental illness, and it's usually something that you develop as you grow up.

~~Cuthbert~~ · 01-22-2014, 01:11 PM

Bad that mate.

Might sound daft but at least if it's happened once in that building then the odds of it happening again must be mental.

I've posted it before but the gun problem in the US seems out of hand.

Paul Smeenus · 01-22-2014, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

I've posted it before but the gun problem in the US seems out of hand.

It's been out of hand for many many years. I loathe and detest the US gun culture

~~Cuthbert~~ · 01-22-2014, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Smeenus

It's been out of hand for many many years. I loathe and detest the US gun culture

Realistically do you think there is a solution to it or is it too ingrained now? Cos that's how it seems to me.

Shootings happen here (see something like Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird and it's mental and nationwide news for days and days) but when they do it's very much a rarity, even in the big cities. Over there it seems like it's happening all the time, can think of loads over the past three or four years.

In fact I posted an article last year, there was one mass shooting a day in 2013 in the US up to about September.

**Janszoon** · 01-22-2014, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

Realistically do you think there is a solution to it or is it too ingrained now? Cos that's how it seems to me.

Shootings happen here (see something like Raoul Moat and Derrick Bird and it's mental and nationwide news for days and days) but when they do it's very much a rarity, even in the big cities. Over there it seems like it's happening all the time, can think of loads over the past three or four years.

In fact I posted an article last year, there was one mass shooting a day in 2013 in the US up to about September.

And that's just mass shootings. The majority of gun deaths in the US are not mass shootings.

Trollheart · 01-22-2014, 05:30 PM

Did not know about this but glad yourself and Schuyler are ok. Scary scary stuff. Totally agree with Ebert: the media make these things into something that almost glorifies the killers/bombers. Remember the Boston bombers? Of course you do. But do you remember more the people who died or the scumbags who carried out the atrocity?

Whose face was on magazine covers, newspapers and TV screens? Who got more "media attention" and who was talked about more on the internet?

Case proven, and closed.

But as I say, great that you two are ok. Condolences to the victim. Sad day.

djchameleon · 01-22-2014, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian Benteke

In fact I posted an article last year, there was one mass shooting a day in 2013 in the US up to about September.

I'd like to see that article if you could find it.

This article states there has been one mass shooting every two weeks since 2006. A mass shooting is defined as at least 4 people getting killed.

USA TODAY Investigation: Database of mass shootings, 2006-2013

Also no one is really saying outlaw guns just have stricter laws in place.

01-22-2014, 05:30 PM	#9 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Did not know about this but glad yourself and Schuyler are ok. Scary scary stuff. Totally agree with Ebert: the media make these things into something that almost glorifies the killers/bombers. Remember the Boston bombers? Of course you do. But do you remember more the people who died or the scumbags who carried out the atrocity? Whose face was on magazine covers, newspapers and TV screens? Who got more "media attention" and who was talked about more on the internet? Case proven, and closed. But as I say, great that you two are ok. Condolences to the victim. Sad day. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

01-22-2014, 01:11 PM	#5 (permalink)
~~Cuthbert~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: The Black Country Posts: 8,827	Bad that mate. Might sound daft but at least if it's happened once in that building then the odds of it happening again must be mental. I've posted it before but the gun problem in the US seems out of hand.