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We Need to Talk About Kevin (connection to Connecticut shooting)

WakeFanatic

WakeFanatic

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Want to keep this separate from the other thread. Has anyone else seen this movie? Read the book? With the connections of Ryan Lanza killing his father, then his mother, who was a teacher at the school, this movie immediately sprung to mind. The movie is about a kid who shows all the mental signs of a kid capable of committing a heinous act. The mother notices it, the father chooses to ignore the signs. The mother is conflicted about what to do, and she doesn't do anything. Tragic things happen, and Kevin goes and shoots up his school after killing his father and sister. With all this in mind, I think it's about time that we started to talk about Kevin. Parents, stop ignoring signs and cries for help. Yes, gun control is also an issue that needs to be discussed, but issues of mental health, and parents paying attention to their kids is an issue that I don't think enough people are talking about.
 
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I just wonder what happened in the last 15-20 years to make kids so angry that they direct their anger not just towards themselves through suicides but towards other people in situations like today's. What kind of rage exists in a person that causes him/her to kill their own parents? I remember reading a thread on the Maryland board about a particular geographic area that was experiencing just a ridiculous rate of suicides compared to other areas:

Here's the thread from the Maryland board:
http://maryland.247sports.com/Board/56/Suicide-9542694/1

It just makes me wonder if today's kids aren't equipped to tolerate things like not getting what they want, that maybe there is this feeling of entitlement that causes people to snap when they suddenly decide they can't put up with things anymore. I just don't get it. How do you decide that not only are you going to take yourself out, but you're going to kill many innocent people before you do it?
 
I was wondering this a minute ago but had nowhere to post it. Not only should there be a question about guns but also the way the whole country functions.

Kids are exposed to some pretty fucked up shit these days. Obviously violence happens everywhere but the whole... I don't even know how to describe it. There's a lot about this country that seemingly can make someone go down dark roads. A lot about the culture and attitudes. I really don't know how to get this thought out.
 
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It's a tough subject, and I think a more useful discussion than "what caused this?" There are any number of causes, and trying to nail down an exact cause may be an exercise in futility. Perhaps the real talking point should be about how to prevent this, and the answer is not eliminate video games, rap music, movies, etc. Millions of people are exposed to these things and are fine. The real issue should be, how do we identify a child who has problems, and once we identify them, how do we help them? Parents, as tough as it may be to acknowledge that your child has a problem, and as impossible as it may seem that your child could ever do something like this, you can't ignore warning signs. We need more mental health awareness among children in this country.
 
I think what I want to say is... from gun prevalence to sex and violence in video games and television, from wealth inequality to rates of imprisonment, from medicating so many kids to the idea of entitlement, from Jersey Shore to Honey Boo Boo (fuck, I don't know)... how much does the state of society today in it's totality (Americanness?) affect the people society is producing and in what ways? Our gunman today and ones of recent. I don't know the answer to this.
 
WakeFanatic said:
We need more mental health awareness among children in this country.
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No doubt, I just suppose that I'm curious whether this illness is a new thing or if it's a product of a larger issue. Have societies always produced these people are these rates and it's just the mix of that and the ease of procuring weapons in this country that makes it prevalent or is it indicative of the way we're living? Trying not to sound judgmental here, just curious.
 
I think social media has a way of unearthing mental illness in a quicker and more intense way than it did when instant connectivity to millions of people was not the norm.

People could keep it at bay easier.
 
We're getting technologically advanced to the point where we can destroy ourselves and we have billions of people. Some percentage of those people are going to be crazy. Not to make too light of today's situation, but I sort of hold the morbid belief that we're probably at the peak of our society (or were earlier this decade or in the 90's) and that its highly unlikely we'll be better off 50 years from now than we are today.

Instead of these nutjobs learning how to make bombs on the internet we're going to be pretty screwed when they can learn to make viruses.
 
ipitytheblue said:
No doubt, I just suppose that I'm curious whether this illness is a new thing or if it's a product of a larger issue. Have societies always produced these people are these rates and it's just the mix of that and the ease of procuring weapons in this country that makes it prevalent or is it indicative of the way we're living? Trying not to sound judgmental here, just curious.
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I don't think it's a new thing, and I think you hit a myriad of causes in your post earlier. Everything in this fucked up society contributes to it. When you have a kid who perhaps already has a sort of imbalance, and is not stable mentally, they can't process it. It festers inside them, until one day they snap.
 
WakeFanatic said:
I don't think it's a new thing, and I think you hit a myriad of causes in your post earlier. Everything in this fucked up society contributes to it. When you have a kid who perhaps already has a sort of imbalance, and is not stable mentally, they can't process it. It festers inside them, until one day they snap.
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a world of ways to exacerbate a condition like that I guess...
 
Way too many questions for answers. I wouldn't be surprised if a small part are frustrations by the youth on how things are "suppose to be" and how things actually are. I don't think an entire generation handles No, and rejection very well. Through out our lives now we are told we can do anything we want, we are all brilliant, we can all be successful, we will succeed, nobody ever tells anyone no you aren't smart, no you shouldn't do this, etc... This all changes when you leave the protection of youth and enter the world of adults, you will be told NO hundreds of times compared to yes, you will be shit on, things will not go the way you planned and no one is there to protect you. Most people need to realize this early instead of being protected and thrown for a shock.
 
When someone posted that the town would be scarred for generations it made me think of The Sweet Hereafter.
 
does anybody think that the media has any effect on shootings like this? it's an argument that a friend made on tuesday, and tried to make again today. it is pretty distasteful to me to play the blame game so soon after such an awful event. but he keeps believing that if the media really downplayed these things, that people wouldn't think about mass murders as their ticket to being famous. personally, i believe that media outlets should use some discretion about what they put out there, but that at the end of the day, these people who do these things are completely off their rockers, and fame or no fame, they're going to do what they're going to do. but he's dead-set that the media plays a role in it.

can anybody support one side or the other?
 
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