I have never been in a movie and needed work; so I was too excited when I received the call from the casting agent to hear what the movie was about until I hung up the phone. Then it dawned on me that the guy had said the movie was about the 1989 school massacre in Montreal, Canada.
Oh man! This was one of the earliest mass killings in a school environment since Whitman’s sniper from the tower in Texas. The mass murder in Montreal changed our social reality as we knew it and could be considered the birth of the nineties as we experienced them. As the survivors said they thought they were being robbed or it was a joke, no one thought a man would just open fire on innocent females. Today School shooting tragedies are a regular part of our lives; there have been four in the month of February in the US alone.
How can an individual become so separated from humanity as to not see the emotional damage they cause when they rip into reality wielding guns and murder? How can we continue to ignore this reality as more and more people experience the sudden tragic loss of loved ones? The answers are not simple, the cause is complex, and unfortunately implementations of measures to ensure our safety from the outburst of mad men are in direct inverse to our valued freedoms. There are some answers though.
First, as a society we can take pre-emptive measures to avert the kind of frustration that builds in an individual that causes these kinds of outburst of rage. The availability of psychologist and councilors should be doubled on all highs school and college campuses. Unfortunately not too many people, especially the ones who most need them, take advantage of these services; if we can create an environment were it is intelligent to use these services then we can reverse the astigmatism that is associated with talking to specialist about our thoughts and feelings. It is the nature of an intelligent person to try to handle things by themselves; we need to make it the intelligent move to handle things with professionals who have a wider view of the big picture. Society is slowly moving in that direction as more people use life coaches, financial planners, PTSD is diagnosed and “treatments” are created; in today’s fast paced world help should be valued and sought after, openly discussed, and considered the smart thing to do.
The creation of online networks could allow people to ventilate and seek help for all types of issues from the privacy of their computer with their identities hidden. We could create online support groups for all types of issues; bi-polar online support groups, AA support groups, Anger management support groups, PTSD, dating and relationship support groups and even how to be a better man or woman support groups. Yet once again if an individual does not seek help there is not much we can do to recognize the hidden emotions that brew and get misdirected towards seemingly innocent people. As our society grows and becomes more competitive we need to keep pace with the emotional support networks available and education of the psychological experience that happens in this new 2.0 technological society.
I support the idea of allowing civilians to carry concealed fire arms. As the law stands now it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon, so the people who follow the law are un-armed and the violent murderers that don’t care about the law are armed and ready to kill. Many women are killed each year by violent men who are angry that they can’t be with the women anymore; and if you know anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of being in a violent relationship it can be one of the most psychological frustrating and traumatizing events that can occur to people. If we arm certain people, ones who can pass a shooting test and ethics test, then when a violent person in crisis walks into a school shooting, the armed and trained sophomore in the front row puts a quick end to the rampage; saving many lives and lessening the PTSD by an untold amount. Many people think that situation would be like the Wild West with people shooting at each other in shoot outs, I disagree. I think if you had to be trained and tested to get a concealed fire arm permit that only a small percentage of the population would carry a gun and they would be trained and mentally stable enough to know when and not when to use a gun; there are still grave consequences for the mis-use of a fire arm. There would be some initial precedent setting cases of the first time a man tries to rob a store with a bat and is shot with a gun, and when innocent victims of cross fire are killed in the shooting while a rampaging murderer is being put down. These experiences already happen today when the cops are shooting. The innocent people who are killed in crossfire at least had someone fighting for them and were not killed executioner style at point blank while armed police waited outside. The number of cross fire deaths would be much less than the number of deaths that are occurring as mass murders walk into an unarmed population and open fire uncontested.
The creation of a dual role in-school guard could put a first responder on the scene in colleges and high schools; this would be good job for the right kind of individual. A good guard would have a particular dual personality of someone who is half teacher/ psychologist and half trained soldier. They would be someone who can watch the student body and talk to individual students and get to know them. Then if a student wants to try to kill as many of their piers as possible they will be aware that they will have to take out the guard first; the guard that they have come to know. Maybe the guard had already heard about the plans or suspected the murders. It’s possible that the knowledge of a guard alone might stop the murder plans and attempts or at least give a warning to the unarmed student body that shots are fired as the initial contact would be with a trained and ready guard instead of an unsuspecting unarmed 16 year old girl busy thinking of her dress for the prom.
Before I continue with any social solutions that take entire community involvement to implement, we must first allow our mentality to evolve to the new reality. People, our colleagues, students, associates, are turning to mass violence and taking people with them when they choose to off themselves. Now that we understand this better than we did in 1989 we should be able to respond to these incidents faster, recognize them quicker, react in appropriate manner. School councilors should not take anything for granted when they have premonitions of mental duress on their campus; yet pressing charges for writing a violent story is unconstitutional, it’s a matter of being ready and versed. The councilor has the right to talk to other teachers and parents about the behavior of students and talk to the students themselves. First responding police officers should not wait for the demands of hostage takers or back up, they should get in the situation and put the shooter down before the suicidal maniac uses every last round but one on innocent people. If you are in a public place and you think you see a gun or hear a gun, get the hell out of there. And if you are dumb enough to bring a gun or a fake gun to school you should be dealt with like yelling fire in a movie theater.
These outbursts though are showing signs of a frustrated public. We need to update our lifestyle and education to reflect modern times. Society has changed dramatically yet we are teaching 1950’s style school systems and classes. We work very hard for a living and in some places have limited choices of expression. These topics I will leave for another day. For now though, allow me to leave you in a moment of silence in remembrance of all the victims and their surviving families who suddenly faced untold violence, may we all find peace in our hearts.
Thank you.
Mark Stegman
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