He sent the males out of the classroom, tied up the females (girls more appropriate, aged 6 to 11) and shot them in the head execution style.

This from the CBC

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His wife briefly left their home and when she returned, found suicide-style notes to her and the three children, said police. Around 11 a.m., he called her from inside the school and told her he wouldn't be coming home.

Police said the notes suggested the man was "acting in a way to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago." He appeared to want to attack young female victims, said police.

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Originally posted by babblerwannabe:
These school shooters are cowards.

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They are more than cowards, esp this fellow, no one in their sane mind acts on something tha pissed him off 20 years ago, and kills little girls.

Goes to show one how women and girls are still "valued" in our "western" society, and there are those that condemn other peoples around the world for their treatment of women and girls. How about looking closer to home and condemning and trying to make changes to violence against women?

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Originally posted by remind:

Goes to show one how women and girls are still "valued" in our "western" society, and there are those that condemn other peoples around the world for their treatment of women and girls. How about looking closer to home and condemning and trying to make changes to violence against women?

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Exactly! But the media and the authorities will focus on the individual shooter. They will not ask, "What have we done to women and girls to turn them into victims on every front?" Nor will they ask, "Why does everyone have guns around the house?"

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Originally posted by unionist:

The iconization of violence (firearms) and the dehumanization of women are among the pillars of that brutal society - a society which 230 years ago seemed like a beacon of enlightenment to humanity. The light has gone out.

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Huh? What society are you referring to here? Canada didn't exist 230 years ago.

9 years ago this truck driver had a baby girl who died as an infant and he never fully recovered from this wound. The event that occoured today was this mans lashing out at God for taking his daughter, by taking the lives of other girls he felt God did not intend to perish. Why exactly he targetted an Amish school is speculation at this time, though taking the lives of religiously pure girls seems to lead the speculation.

Not sure what to think of this. I'll put up some sources on this when I can find something more concrete than rumours.

added:

Supersnake, I'm pretty sure the reference was to the US... I've you've read the article, you'd know where this occoured:

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A gunman has shot dead four girls and injured several others before killing himself in an attack on an Amish school in the US state of Pennsylvania.

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[ 03 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]

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Originally posted by SUPERSNAKE:

Huh? What society are you referring to here? Canada didn't exist 230 years ago.

Are you referring to the USA?

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Yes. 1776. The Declaration of Independence. Representation by population. Freedom from colonial shackles. An end to monarchy and aristocracy. Separation of church and state. The inspiration for the French Revolution.

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A gunman who killed five girls in an attack on a Pennsylvania Amish school told his wife he had molested two young members of his family 20 years ago.

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Mr Miller said that all members of Robert's family, including two who were aged between three and five-years-old 20 years ago, had been interviewed following his abuse confession, but all said they had no knowledge of any such molestation occurring.

Roberts would have been aged 11 or 12 at the time of the claimed abuse.

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This story still isn't adding up. As always, there appears to be a media drive to label the man a complete nut (He murdered 5 young girls because of something he did when he was 12?).

BBC has a take slightly more inline with my rumour post:

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In both the suicide notes and the call to his wife, Roberts spoke of his trauma following the death of his infant daughter Elise nine years before.

Elise was born premature in 1997 and only survived for 20 minutes.

Roberts said that following the girl's death his life had "changed forever" and that he was angry at God and himself.
...

Police say Roberts had meticulously prepared for the attack
...
However, police believe that when state troopers arrived at the school and surrounded it, it disrupted Roberts' plan and caused him to panic.

The hostage crisis quickly descended into a bloodbath as Roberts began shooting the girls

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added...

An interesting bit of this... Yahoo and other silly media outlets are running headlines of "Amish School Shooter Wanted to molest Girls", along with most other mainstream ones like CNN or our CBC. The 'angry with God' story has to be searched for instead. Makes me wonder why the media is so honed in on making people know he 'dreamed of molesting girls' and did so 20 years ago (when those that were molested say they have no recolection of it).

[ 03 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]

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Originally posted by babblerwannabe:
It seems that females are always the victims in these sort of shootings. It's very sad. In my opinon, I would probably think that boys generally suffer most of the bullying from others boys, not from the girls. Why are they directing their angers at the females? (I am not saying that killing anyone is acceptable in any way) These school shooters are cowards.

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Most murderers don't direct their anger at females. The overwhelming number of multiple murders in the USA are of males and those victims who are non-adult are also male. Males are more likely the victims in all age and race categories. There's just over 16,000 murders in the USA in a year. That's roughly 50 a day. It's a terrible tragedy that these girls were killed but the odds are 9 times as many humans were murdered in the USA on the same day and twice as many non-adults were murdered. A couple of Black kids being shot in an inner city neighborhood doesn't make the headlines on CNN. Unfortunately it's run-of-the-mill and doesn't have any sensationalist hook.

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First of all, most murderers are males murdering other males. Males are more likely to be victims of other males!Second, this is hardly 'run of the mill'. This man had a vendetta of some sort against females. Females are the vast majority of victims when it comes to little things like you know, rape, molestations, incest....or do you figure this is just run of the mill too and so no need to have a look at a culture that advocates, in its own way, the devaluing and the degradation of girls and women?

[ 03 October 2006: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

I don't even know what to make of Southlander's comment.

[ 03 October 2006: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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Or is he punishing god for killing his daughter?

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Seriously, the images of that freak tying up little kids and shooting them one by one, after he reportedly molested others previously, has been buring me all day--to the point where I haven't been able to get much done at all.

As I get ready to hit the sack, I remember feeling nautious at different time sof the day. I think I now know why.

A child molester and murderer wrapped up in the same sick waste-of-a-hman carcass is too much for even a hardened jaded sour-puss like me. The horrid memories of CLifford Robert Olsen come to mind.

I felt enough anger today to go rip someone's head off. Reason and ehtics, however, prevent me from doing it. If that perp was alive and in front of me, that would be a different matter.

Actually, I don't feel quite as bad about this as I did before, after a good talk with my spouse.

And please don't hit me with this baloney that it's somehow more socially acceptable to commit acts of this kind against women and girls, because I doubt there's a culture anywhere that would even remotely condone what that freak pulled yesterday.

And it doesn't flinch me much that he was supposedly grieving the loss of his still-born daughter and looking to get even with God. This dirt bag obviously didn't deserve to have a kid--and I say this as a father of two girls (now women) and a grandfather of one. Given what he was like with other kids, who knows what he would have done to his own.

If there is a heaven or hell someplace, I can guess which highway he's on right now.

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Seriously, the images of that freak tying up little kids and shooting them one by one, after he reportedly molested others previously,

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There is a part of me that thinkgs the 'molested others previously' is being exceedingly overplayed by the media to paint the man as a complete monster. The 'incident' thats being reported happened 20 years ago (when he was 12) and the family members involved don't have a clue what he was talking about (admittadely they were 3-4 at the time, and I'm not all to sure how memory suppression for such an occourence works).

This in no way justifies his actions or anything close to it... But it's interesting to watch how the media harps on this one point over and over again and let the suicide note take second string (the one referring to his prematures babies death).

[ 04 October 2006: Message edited by: Noise ]

Are these acts (school shootings, the unibomber) simply societal flaws that we strive to but cannot completely prevent?

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Are these acts (school shootings, the unibomber) simply societal flaws that we strive to but cannot completely prevent?

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Originally posted by Southlander:
[QB]Muslem marters are promised 74 virgins in heaven. Maybe these guys are just getting themselves a few?

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You know, there is only one thing more annoying than someone singing one line from some annoying tune over and over, and it's when they even get the words wrong to that one line.

First of all, the ol' racist ditty about "Muslem marters" (sic) is that they get 72 virgins. Maybe you're just adjusting for inflation? Perhaps you're even more generous than than Allah? Perhaps you're deliberately provoking a response, in which case, I'll bite...

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haven't read through this entire thread - sorry - but on CBC yesterday someone made reference to the 'copycat syndrome' as possibly an explanation for the recent spate of shool shootings.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Yes. 1776. The Declaration of Independence. Representation by population. Freedom from colonial shackles. An end to monarchy and aristocracy. Separation of church and state. The inspiration for the French Revolution.

Hard to believe it ever happened down there.

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Ah crap. You're right, or course.
Sorry all- had a brain cramp there. Forgot where this insanity occured.

I don't know why these events seem to be happening with more frequency. It's very tempting for me to say media sensationalism is playing a part-
but then I think, well I watch/listen to/read the vaious media, and I haven't gone on a rampage.

Part of me wants to say it's the way we raised/are raising our kids-
but then I remember a little of the adversity I faced while growing up, and the various environments in which my friends and family were raised; and none of us have come (that) unhinged.

Is it population, and how that figures into "the odds"?

[ 05 October 2006: Message edited by: SUPERSNAKE ]

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Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:

Can you site Sura and line for this claim? Perhaps there is fiqh on it somewhere?

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Love to know what these mean? Sura? figh?

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Originally posted by Southlander:

Love to know what these mean? Sura? figh?

I do try and respect other religions, but I have trouble with the 72 virgins bit as it imples the 72 virgins have no say in their afterlife. I suppose there is some dead virgins who would be happy to be united with a man who died for their religion, (even if they only see him for 1 1/2 hours a week). Wouldn't most of them rather hook up with a man all to themselves? Do we ever run out of commited virgins?

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Why even bring up Islam in this thread? And why fixate on this aspect of Islam? It completely undermines your claim that you respect other religions.

I think the fixation on the 72 virgins by many people in the western world, who otherwise know nothing about Islam, is a commentary of their own fucked up worldview.

My later comment says 'does the moslem religion consider the desires of the 72 virgins?' From a feminist point of view I consider this a fair comment, or are the 72 virgins not real people with real thoughts? Can one be a feminist and a moslem?

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Originally posted by Southlander:
My origional comment said moslem marters get 72 virgins in heaven. How is this villifacation? I thought it was simply a statement of fact? Please explain.

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This is still thread drift, but please allow me to try and clear it up. I responded to your post above making the claim that "moslem marters" (sic) get "74 virgins" for several reasons:

1. It was only tangentally related to this thread, and I thought it's inclusion was unneccessary.

2. This trope about The Virgins has become a slur of sorts, rarely substantiated with actual testimony of (lay or cleric) Muslims. Its effect is rarely to cast aspersion on suicide bombers, but rather to trivialise Muslims' motivations for (extreme) political action.

3. In using this slur, you originally got the supposed number of virgins wrong and I figured, "hey, if you're gonna slur people, might as well get it right..."

My request for Sura (i.e. a chapter of the Qu'ran) and/or fiqh (Islamic theological/juridicial opinion) was made rhetorically to demonstrate your (probable) ignorance of the subject matter, which you have duly demonstrated. That's okay, I don't hold it against you, but armed with that little bit of information I just gave you, I suggest you make a foray into the world-wide-web and/or to your local library and have a look-see for more info on those questions you have.

I'm sorry I added to that thread drift. If you want to discuss Islamic beliefs, do some more reading/research, do a search through the Babble archives, and then, if you still feel the need to discuss it, make a new thread. For now, this has no place here, and I'm done on the subject.

*******************************************

Back to Amish kids getting shot by a (possibly) mentally ill guy...

I still think that we are all involved in an act of obscuring the "truth" of this act. The media (incl. discussion sites like this one) function partly as our repository of stories. The stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the events that take place around us. The rush to try and find sense or logic or even clear-cut motivations is simply a mechanism we use to make smooth the rough edges of "irrational" actions such as these.

[ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by Noise:

I beleive the number one goal is to say no, we and our society is the best it gets... Admitting this man is a part of our society is admitting we are flawwed. Far easier to paint the man as a complete pyscho wackjob independant of our society, then it's not our fault, it's simply this one monsters fault.

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Um. I think there is a great deal of evidence to suggest these people are mentally ill. We did not make them mentally ill. A recently fired employee shooting up the workplace or kids that are picked on repeatedly deciding to bring a gun to school can at times be partially blamed on their social surroundings.

I see no motive other than mental illness in this case.

Killing children because you're afraid of molesting children again? You cannot possibly imply this individual could think rationally.

[ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: Who? ]

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Read in the paper today that (in the context of a fund being set up to help the families of the murdered Amish girls), Amish elders requested a fund also be set up for Roberts' widow and children. That was so touching I almost cried. I'm not christian, but to me, THAT is true christianity. How you manifest Christ in the face of tragedy and adversity. THAT is the love that Christians speak of.

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I spent a year traveling around the east coast US, and had quite a few dealings with different groups of Amish. From that experience, I would say that there are two things that they do very right, that the rest of society does not do very well any more.

The first thing is they maintain a wholesome family unit where all members are supportive of other members. All members of the family respect every other member, and do their best to help all individuals in the family.

This family unit is then extended to their community, where helping each other and mutual respect are amoung the most important things for all individuals to do.

The second thing they do, is live and breath what they believe. There is no hypocracy with the Amish. What you see on the surface is the same thing that live and preach to each other internally.

When you look at society in general, the family has lost its importance. Children are turned over to daycare centers so that parents can go to work. People no longer put in the effort to keep a family together. Discipline and respect are no longer part of any curriculum or family. (Any teacher actually caught trying to use discipline to instill respect in kids is sued for harrasment)

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The last thing the deaths of those Amish girls was about is school security. It was a one-room school! It's impressive how inventive people can get at avoiding painful questions.

Their killer, Charles Roberts, was a soul in sexual torment. That his life seemed normal means the pressure inside must have been unbearable. Imagine having a clear plan of kidnap, sexual assault and murder, yet no one has a clue. It was about drivenness -- he said it had been there since he abused younger relatives when he was 12. They say it never happened; it doesn't matter. The guilt and self-loathing are the same. He lost a newborn daughter, which he seemed to take as punishment from God for his earlier crime, or perhaps a way to ensure he wouldn't do it again to his own child. When he reached the school, things went awry; the sexual part didn't unfold, but the murders did. Maybe he thought it was "the best" he could do, morally, in his wretched state. I don't get the sense of a monster, rather of something understandable and human, which might have been fixable had there been people sensitive and competent to talk to about it.

Now add religion of the primitivist sort that is extremely common in the U.S., either fundamentalist or evangelical. It frowns on sex except in marriage, in which case there is an ocean of loathsome practices that will need to be suppressed until they explode at home, in the community or do severe internal damage. People used to claim that Catholicism offered an outlet for these torments in the confessional, but that hardly stands up now: Imagine confessing a desire for sex with kids to a priest who may be plagued by similar thoughts, or even has a track record. Sexual distress and religion have a long intimate history.

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Originally posted by Howard R. Hamilton:
When you look at society in general, the family has lost its importance. Children are turned over to daycare centers so that parents can go to work.

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People don't "turn over" their children to daycare centres because they think the family is not important. They do it so that they can have an opportunity to earn sufficient income to support and provide for that very family.

It is rather those who oppose funding programs to increase the amount of available, affordable childcare facilities who are "anti-family".

[ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

quote:

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
People don't "turn over" their children to daycare centres because they think the family is not important. They do it so that they can have an opportunity to earn sufficient income to support and provide for that very family.

[ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Sexual distress and religion have a long intimate history.

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Perhaps, though I think he unfairly lays blame at the door of religion. "Sexual distress" is part of "civilisation" by the Freudian/psychoanalytic standard. Any code of ethics/morality that comes up against these desires can produce said distress.

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Published on Friday, October 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
What the Amish are Teaching America
by Sally Kohn

On October 2, Charles Carl Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined up eleven young girls from the class and shot them each at point blank range. The gruesome depths of this crime are hard for any community to grasp, but certainly for the Amish — who live such a secluded and peaceful life, removed even from the everyday depictions of violence on TV. When the Amish were suddenly pierced by violence, how did they respond?

The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental health counselors. As of that evening, three little girls were dead. Eight were hospitalized in critical condition. (One more girl has died since.) According to reports by counselors who attended the grief session, the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions: Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in our beds tonight, is that okay? But one question they asked might surprise us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the family of the shooter? Plans were already underway for a horse-and-buggy caravan to visit Charles Carl Roberts’ family with offers of food and condolences. The Amish, it seems, don’t automatically translate their grieving into revenge. Rather, they believe in redemption.

..................

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Until people start taking responsibility for their own actions, and that includes raising their kids, we are going to see more and more of these people who "had problems" while they were growing up cracking under the pressure.

Being a parent is a full time job. It's too bad that you don't see the rewards that being a parent is. As far as:

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People don't "turn over" their children to daycare centres because they think the family is not important. They do it so that they can have an opportunity to earn sufficient income to support and provide for that very family.

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Being a parent is a full time job. It's too bad that you don't see the rewards that being a parent is. As far as: "

I was raised by a single mother and a 'daycare factory' may have been a real help at times. Regardless, I survived the single parent home just fine. Having a mother who can stay home with her kids fulltime maybe an ideal to some, but to many it's simply not an option anymore. In fact I get tired of this moralistic undertone, especially from conservatives who fail to consider the added challenges of raising children nowadays or the possibility that some women may just want More in their life than being a Mommy. Does one have to come at the expense of the other when there are now other possibilities? Maybe if more cons supported full employment policies, higher wages or lower rents in the real world, their silly insinuations about divorce being a kind of selfish choice may not be so bad. Divorce costs, it's rarely decided upon lightly, but it's often better than the alternatives, so please stop blaming the mothers who usually take Care of the kids afterwords or evoking a 'good old days' that never really existed for most working folk.

[ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]

Is the author meaning their own redemption and that of those still alive? That's the only way I can read this. They are taking a positively Christian stand on this - i.e. Love Thine Enemy. But, interestingly, if there is a lesson we all might take from their actions, it's that they are actually acting more in accordance with the notion of individual choice (a key to redemption) than much of the American society around them. We usually like to give individual choice to "secular society" (whatever that is) and think that religion is the repressive father who holds these choices out of reach. I'd like to differ.

On the one hand, we have a culture of revenge wherein blame for the vengeful acts of "victims" is ascribed to the original attacker. The act of revenge is of course - it simply happens, it's natural. One can easily see this both in interpersonal relationships and in political culture as a whole. On the other hand, whenever acts like this shooting take place, there is an immediate urge (it happened here) to blame everyone but the shooter - society, family, religion (Salutin's weak argument). The action couldn't possibly be a) an act of individual will, or b) an act so irrational that it won't fit into a neat scheme of social cause-and-effect.

In all these cases, the individual is bystander to their actions. The Amish are making a choice to "love thine enemy" - breaking the so-called "natural" cycle of victimhood and vengeance. They're also preserving the undecidability of The Other's actions. The idea that no scheme of cause-and-effect, no behaviouralist psychology, no narrative of victimhood can fully account for "Evil" or irrationality. And that because of this, we are all potential victims of Evil as well as purpetrators. So, in the end, we are stuck with our ability to choose and react to Evil and irrationality. Reaching out to the shooter's family affirms the positive (not passive) role that we each have to play in "redemption". Here, faith is a courageous reaching out to others, not the passive blame-seeking and vengefulness that we admire so much in our society.

[ 08 October 2006: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]

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Originally posted by Howard R. Hamilton:
[QB]Sorry M. Spector, but I have to disagree. It is these daycare factories that are keeping the children from getting the proper nurturing environment while they are growing up. /QB]

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When my wife and I started having kids, I sold the house in the city on the 50*140 foot lot for a 79 acre lot out in the country that had twice the house for half the mortgage. I also spent the first 6 months of each of my daughters lives at home looking after my wife and daughters. Since then, my wife works part time and I work from home.

quote:

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Originally posted by Howard R. Hamilton:

When my wife and I started having kids, I sold the house in the city on the 50*140 foot lot for a 79 acre lot out in the country that had twice the house for half the mortgage. I also spent the first 6 months of each of my daughters lives at home looking after my wife and daughters. Since then, my wife works part time and I work from home.

The people who are putting their career ahead of their family are not doing right by their family.

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Howard, perhaps you are very lucky. Few people can take that much time off to be with their families and raise their kids. If my husband wanted to take six months off, we would be hurting in half that time and on the streets shortly after. And we have one vehicle, one house, and we are so not in the burbs. And we both work. Some people don't have the choices you apparently have had, and that does not make them bad parents. It's unfair for you to make that assumption.

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When my wife and I started having kids, I sold the house in the city on the 50*140 foot lot for a 79 acre lot out in the country that had twice the house for half the mortgage. I also spent the first 6 months of each of my daughters lives at home looking after my wife and daughters. Since then, my wife works part time and I work from home.

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Oh this is fun! And you think everyone has that or similar opportunities landing at their feet.

Lemmie ask, what do you think would happen to rural areas, as well as the labour supply for most sectors, if everybody did what you did?

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The people who are putting their career ahead of their family are not doing right by their family.

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True. But just who's doing that? People who use daycare services for their kids while they're at work aren't doing that--especially since the public daycares, at least in my part of the country, have fully trained union staff that does more than just baby-sit, but teaches, engages and helps with the development of children.

It's great to have the daycare services we do have, and it's an absolute crime that we don't have anywhere near enough of them to meet the huge need out there.

If you don't like "daycare factories," as you call them (which in my experience is BS), then would you consider the idea of paying parents to stay home and raise their children through their formative years, and go to work or school only after they are past this stage? If not, then admit that public daycare is the best option.

After raising two daughters to adulthood, and now a grandparent, as well as helping other family members and friends raise their kinds, I do see what is meant by the old saying, "It takes a village to raise a child."

It's true. Sometimes it seems like it takes a whole subdivision.

My comments are directed at these families, because they are producing the bad apples that are spoiling the barrel. Their kids have no respect for anything, take no responsibility for anything, and spend their time getting into trouble.

Currently, my kids are 2 1/2 and 4. They are rambunctious and very active, but they know that there are consequences for bad actions, and they respect both the people and property around them.

I think that the idea of paying parents to have one stay home and look after the kids would be a good idea. The current Conservative initiative to pay $100 per child under 6 to all families is actual a step in that direction. It could be used to allow one of the parents to take at least one day a week to spend with the kids and give them the family environment.

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And again it's a shame and a crime that our corporate capitalist dominated economy puts so little value in what is in fact the most important thing humans do.

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That is an understatement that bares repeating.

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I think the various attempts at theorising (actually narrating, if you ask me) his "reasons" say more about us than about the shooter himself. Frankly, psychology isn't so cut and dried, but we seem to need to close the narrative loop in order to assimilate his act. Somehow, we can't stand the naked reality that it doesn't make sense, that there is not necessarily a concise underlying logic to his - or anyone else's - violent behaviour. It's as though we want wanton violence, without that which makes it so wanton - the complete unpredictable irrationality of it.

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I don't agree with that. If you follow the trail on this... This guy had planned this out months in advance. It's why finding this narrative is quite important to the scenario... Not all violence is irrational and unpredictable. Determining why he did this, the motives behind it, and his path to do it is an important step. If we understand why one of us... One of our society... would commit such an act, would we be able to recognize this and reach out to others in similar situations before events repeat themselves.

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Incredibly, few if any prominent voices in the broadcast or print media have called the incidents what they are: hate crimes perpetrated by angry white men against defenseless young girls, who -- whatever the twisted motives of the shooters -- were targeted for sexual assault and murder precisely because they are girls.

What is it going to take for our society to deal honestly with the extent and depth of this problem? How many more young girls have to die before decision-makers in media and other influential institutions stop averting their eyes from the lethal mix of deep misogyny and violent masculinity at work here?
Read the article

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