Certainly I cannot speak for every instance, individual, or case. I can however share insight into my experiences and observations, and I’d like to present a different perspective than the one people tend to focus upon. Gun control won’t solve what we are seeing. Guns have been more readily accessible in the past, they aren’t the issue. People and society are the issue.
This latest tragedy involves a young man who left quite a detailed account. Even the image he presents leads me to my personal conclusions on this terrible trend of homicide and suicide at campuses everywhere. The media and the social values these images and stories represent to the youth–and all of us, to be honest. What we find acceptable today wasn’t always acceptable. How far is too far?
I see an angry young man who basically disses his mates for not allowing him to feel that his life is as it should be. How subjective? And based upon what? Sex, popularity, and many other superficial standards of success and acceptance. The cool life. So he goes off the deep end and kills, and ending his own life. This is a desire to exit, angrily and with finality. No way out.
When someone does reach the end of their rope, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, the desire to live disappears. The desire to achieve disappears. The desire to put any effort into anything eventually disappears. It’s a brokenness of mind and spirit. Never mistake someone’s decision to give up as a transparent fact. The deeper psychological and health implications are a severe obstacle to overcome.
What beliefs did these young people have about the way the world should be?
And what was their real experience with the world? I bet they rarely, if ever, talked about it.
The emotional machine is a very real engine of action, right and wrong. In our morality over the rules in society’s laws, we have failed these young people in our social norms, the unspoken and unwritten rules of how we as human beings ought to be–to be treated, to be thought of, to be respected, to be love and receive love. Instead, again I ask, what is the experience of youth today?
Is it just youth today? Why are statistics showing a rise in mental illness?
Is it the guns? Or is it something about who we are as a society? I beg the question that can bring real change.