08-27-2015, 12:20 PM
I caught part of a guy being interviewed on CNN last night. He was billed as an expert in mass shootings (sorry, missed his name).
Anyway, it was a strange interview. He was almost giving the CNN host and the station shit for covering the story, yet there he was being interviewed about it.
He is one of many who feels that intensive media coverage of such crimes pushes people with homicidal thoughts to carry through on them.
I think he's probably right when it comes to some killers; that the expected infamy is part of the lure. But, I also agree with the host; that people who are lured to follow through on serious fantasies about killing others are fucked up already. Who knows what will tip them over the edge and when.
I don't think the press and news networks should be restricted in what they can cover. But, it wouldn't bother me if they established policy towards shorter and more facts-only coverage. Whether that would actually reduce the number of incidents though, I don't know. Social media would still be active with all of details, comments by people who knew the killer/victims or witnessed the events, speculation, opinion...
In the end, you can't control people's curiosity and, in some ways, I think knowing about these types of killers and their behaviors helps the whole of the public to be aware and alert that they exist among us (and always have).
The killer in yesterday's mass shooting was an "injustice collector", just like Christopher Dorner, and the virgin Santa Barbara mass-murderer who had it out for all women, and so many others. All of them with histories of strange threatening behavior, rambling manifestos about how they were victims of the system, racism, women, whatever...and how their murderous acts were a form of vengeful justice.
I don't think there's any one way to prevent or deter people with such fucked-up mindsets or mental illness from taking it out on others, but a combination of efforts could help. Forced mental health incarceration in severe cases, less accessibility to weapons that make mass-murder much easier to pull off, fewer/reduced means by which to get their warped messages out and achieve notoriety -- all probably worthwhile efforts in combination, yet all potentially restricting the rights of perfectly normal people in the process. I don't get the sense that the majority of the American public wants to make that trade-off.
Anyway, it was a strange interview. He was almost giving the CNN host and the station shit for covering the story, yet there he was being interviewed about it.
He is one of many who feels that intensive media coverage of such crimes pushes people with homicidal thoughts to carry through on them.
I think he's probably right when it comes to some killers; that the expected infamy is part of the lure. But, I also agree with the host; that people who are lured to follow through on serious fantasies about killing others are fucked up already. Who knows what will tip them over the edge and when.
I don't think the press and news networks should be restricted in what they can cover. But, it wouldn't bother me if they established policy towards shorter and more facts-only coverage. Whether that would actually reduce the number of incidents though, I don't know. Social media would still be active with all of details, comments by people who knew the killer/victims or witnessed the events, speculation, opinion...
In the end, you can't control people's curiosity and, in some ways, I think knowing about these types of killers and their behaviors helps the whole of the public to be aware and alert that they exist among us (and always have).
The killer in yesterday's mass shooting was an "injustice collector", just like Christopher Dorner, and the virgin Santa Barbara mass-murderer who had it out for all women, and so many others. All of them with histories of strange threatening behavior, rambling manifestos about how they were victims of the system, racism, women, whatever...and how their murderous acts were a form of vengeful justice.
I don't think there's any one way to prevent or deter people with such fucked-up mindsets or mental illness from taking it out on others, but a combination of efforts could help. Forced mental health incarceration in severe cases, less accessibility to weapons that make mass-murder much easier to pull off, fewer/reduced means by which to get their warped messages out and achieve notoriety -- all probably worthwhile efforts in combination, yet all potentially restricting the rights of perfectly normal people in the process. I don't get the sense that the majority of the American public wants to make that trade-off.