Before I decide to watch the news, I have to decide whether or not I am emotionally ready. Years ago while watching news coverage of the Tiananmen Square Massacre I began to cry. Alex was seated on the couch next to me, and he asked me why I was crying. “You don’t know any of those people”, he said. I was shocked and at that time wondered if perhaps I feel things more than most people, or if he feels less.
When I started to read about Asa Coon and the Ohio school shootings I sadly wasn’t surprised to see that they listed the fact that he was a “Goth” who wore a trench coat and liked Marilyn Manson’s music before they listed his previous suicide attempt while in a mental health care facility, the fact that students had tried to speak with the principal about threats he had made but she was always too busy, or the mental health facility’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder and their suggestion of further evaluation.
At times like this it’s not hard to think of Columbine. “See”, people can say now, “all of the boys listened to Marilyn Manson and wore trench coats.” If a violent video game connection can be made it too will be used. Some might check if Asa came from a broken home, if he suffered abuse, if he was breastfed. There has to be more to it than that. Andrew Kehoe killed 45 people in Bath Township, Michigan in 1927.This would obviously have taken place before the advent of violence in the media. I can remember after the shooting in Columbine someone asking Marilyn Manson what he would say if he could talk to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. “I wouldn’t say anything. I would listen”, was his reply. I think the same holds true here.
While it’s easy to make this a case of violence in the media, or mental illness left untreated, that’s too easy. I honestly don’t think that you can blame one solitary factor or combinations thereof to explain why some people snap and kill others and/or themselves and others do not. Yes, there were warnings signs. Yes, obviously something should have been done to help Asa Coon before this event. But I don’t think you’ll find the answer to his troubled mind in his favorite musician. Does anyone even know that Seung-Hui Cho listened to Collective Soul?
' October 11th, 2007 at 12:04pm 1 comment
I quite agree. Many people also blamed Manson for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold’s actions in 1999, without learning that they DIDN’T EVEN LIKE HIS MUSIC. Instead of blaming the music they DID listen to, America picked something they thought was similar. Disgusting.