With three fatal school shootings in a week in the U.S., close on the heels of the Kimveer Gill shooting in Canada, the usual cliche’d explanations are being trotted out. A vampire website called “Some Lives Are Different” is being terminated by its Canadian ISP although no actual crime has been associated with it. The Columbine shootings are still largely blamed on violent video games and Marilyn Manson. A woman in Georgia is basking in international fame (or notoriety) for trying (a second time) to have the Harry Potter books removed from the local school libraries, alleging that, among other things, the books encourage school shootings. But an editorial in USA Today injects a rare rational note by pointing out that school violence (bombings, multiple shootings) goes back more than 80 years in the United States.
As Michael Moore suggested in Bowling for Columbine, there is clearly a deeper explanation for supposedly “random violence” than the usual easy scapegoats.