The whole world is in deep shock about the killing of the five girls by Charles Carl Roberts in a Pennsylvania Amish school yesterday. It is the third fatal school shooting in the United States over the last five days.

Why does this kind of crime take place? While it is an extremely rare event in other countries, it seems to be a regular occurance in the US. Is it just about gun ownership. If so, is there any chance that the American people will change their mind on this issue.

I heard one expert on the BBC last night saying that the real problem is the desire of American people to be famous. She said that mass killings do not always make the front page. Therefore, they need to commit outrageous crimes such as the killing of young girls in order to guarrantee appearing in the news.

Oh, my, John.....I think I know the answer, but it is not easily put down in less than a book....the problem is not [really] guns per se, but violence and the celebration of it. I think the government sets the tone for the country by demonstrating that violence is the means to use to solve problems...ie Vietnam, Iraq, ad nauseum and talk [diplomacy for the nation, discussion or seeing a counselor or psychiatrist for a person] are out. Add to that, tender lovemaking is banned from movies or discussion on radio etc...but watching someone blown to bits, shot at, etc. is not.... America is a deeply sick country with false and twisted values. Most Americans are seething just under the surface with many discontents - loss of job; stress of work or life; false values or no values; seeing or sensing the long history of lies the country has lived [Dallas, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc.] and the false meaningless values in society [need I list them?]....

Add to that, the availability of guns and all the shows on TV and films full to busting with violence and you get pathology...oh throw in junk food which [besides being a physical health risk] actually does change peoples mental state.....It is horrible, but it will keep happening...when I was last in America a few years ago the politically progressive bumper stickers on my car more than once got a gun pointed in my face.....the whole nation is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It comes from the top but fills all levels and all aspects of a very sick society...where the natural is loathed and false values are worshipped, where money and greed and violence are in and the example set at the top levels.....he was only doing what the nation continually does....kill innocents we don't know for no real good reason but our own pathology. As long as the nation does it the citizenry will follow the examples set...violent military, violent police, violent laws, violent movies and TV, violent ideas toward others and the other lifeforms on the planet.....sad....sad....sad.....

Why were they threatening me with violence for bumper stickers on Peace and Justice?...because it is 'un-American' [out of step] to be for Peace and Justice now...as foreign policy, or neighbor to neighbor. There is also the winner take all, Wild-West notion you see all the time in government and corporate avarice....so why not take a life in the 'take all' ethic. The society is deeply pathological, deeply imbued with violence from the 'get go', and has completely lost its way and few in it see any real meaning in life other than the pursuit of money and consumer goods; or sadly by 'feeling alive' by taking life....some do it with computer games, and some do it for real. Those of you in Europe and the rest of the world, unless you have lived for half a year or more in America will never quite understand......humanity in its death throws...America leading the charge....sadly. I suggest we give the nation back to the Native Americans who had values by far superior in morality and ethics than those who came there and raped it (and them) and have made the mess we now see growing.

There is also an unusual level of 'acting out' as it is called in psychology....along with a great deal of individual and societal psychopathology. It begins IMO with the breakdown of natural values and human institutions, such as family. The family in America has deteriorated almost to extinction. Many older parents are left to rot in old-person homes etc. rather than helped by their children - as the bonds and love are/were broken and were often absent or distorted when the roles were reversed. At best, only the nuclear family exists for most, and that in a weakened state. Then, many have no real values or ideals...only the false ones created by the media. Many Americans can literally not tell that the media version is less real than real life and confuse or reverse the two....as hard as that may be to believe. This also explains much of the political situation. It is a problem of humankind in an overpopulated state, having lost its natural balance with the planet, in uncharted territory given the rapid changes due to technology and human 'civilization'...but more manifest in the USA perhaps than in most developed countries.

Another factor is the emphasis on the need for power and to 'be someone' or to be seen as 'nothing'. Most fulfill this hollow/false 'need' generated in the US by the pursuit of money and 'things' material, others take the pathology to another lower level and do it by controlling life, by taking it. I think the distorted role religion plays in American life also comes in here....but to not offend the believers, I will leave it at that. Also, playing a part is the 'education' system which is very much a force-fed robotic system, minus discussion of, or readings in philosophy, history, ethics, etc. The distorted religious beliefs are now even having their effects on education...suggesting we doubt evolution, psychology, history, critical thinking, questioning authority, etc......

The media, most are addicted to in the USA, focuses on just these kind of events....so when OJ Simpson or some brainless model/actress is involved in scandal it trumps by many times interest of coverage of wars and real news. Role models in this distorted landscape are exactly these scandal-makers, killers and others of that type...but I think it is not so much to be famous like them, but the need to be recognized as someone in an impersonal society ‘machine’, even if for just a flash before killing oneself after killing others.

The value of human life has also degraded by the endless violence on the TV, film and by the society internally and with our aggressive foreign policy. A disconnect to others also exists in a society not held together by what I would call real values, ethics, etc. Some can find their way past all these obstacles, of course and there are sane individuals in America...but they are not the majority IMO. The mainstream in the country are highly psychopathological....and the proof is in the 'pudding' of the films, TV and political leaders we vomit to the rest of the world and on our own laps.

Mix that all together with a few guns for every man, woman and child and a government that sets an example of violence, a culture of violence and climbing over others to achieve ends, the breakdown of human connections, and voila.....many copycat school killings and other killings....and they will continue to increase until the underlying social and political pathology manifesting itself on a personal level are all dealt with IMO.

A good analysis of American society. The image of the United States portrayed via its movies is indeed appalling. As you point out, it is not only its violence but its deeply repressed sexuality. According to your movies, the US is full of angry, aggressive and violent people. In fact, when you visit the US you discover that the people are not nearly as bad as they are portrayed in the movies. However, some of them do come across as very aggressive on this Forum.

All societies have their fair share of “nutters”. However, the problem for the US is that these nutters are armed with guns.

This is part of the answer...many persons that shouldn't even have long fingernails have machine guns or worse! I also think the sexual repression comes into it; the false values of most and society as a whole; the inability to sense the difference between reality and fantasy world; as well as that message that competition and domanance are to be a person's [and the society's] aim - rather than cooperation and coexistance. It pervades everything. In most countries most people just feel they 'are'. In America many, if not most, are made to feel they are failures if they are not specifically 'successes' in societally defined terms...[rich, powerful, in control]. this pathological competition and striving to get on top of the fray leads to all kinds of pathology...more usually seen in the political and business aspects of society, but also in the personal. Of course, anyone who would shoot at innocent people can be diagnosed as severely mentally disturbed, BUT I think you miss my point if you don't understand that many who would be so diagnosed in other societies are considered as fairly normative in the USA...the 'sanity' issue is skewed by the societies pathology, IMO. For example, to be a weapons collector and have an arsenal of weapons is not considered by many pathological. Nor is our aggressive and continuous foreign policy. Ditto the fact we imprison the largest % of our population and have very violent police and other internal methods. Even the fact that 46,000,000 have NO health insurance in the wealthiest country on earth [when you average in the ultra rich and the very poor] is a kind of violence...and many do die as a result of this. The black infant mortality rate is similar to Bangladesh. While few can actively articulate what I have outlined, I think on some deep level even those who would argue with me 'sense' the problems and the resulting stress in society....and all too often 'act out' some personal pathology in the societally sanctioned way...public violence, as one sees in the movies, TV or on the evening news -upon innnocents they don't know, for no real reason at all and because the 'other' has been de-personalized and dehumanized in the dog-eat-dog world that is America today. There is an element of desensitization, I think has been purposeful. A child of 8 has already witnessed some tens of thousands of murders [many very graphic and violent] in the USA...a similar technique used on special forces and black operatives - showing them graphic violent films to desensitize them for what they likely will be doing.

Sadly, the pathology I describe is most associated with the conservative political forces now dominant and their supporters. Increasingly, the true 'sane' [I'd guess half of the population] in their personal lives and in their political beliefs are being marginalized and even ocasionally criminalized. IMO The biggest nuts [American version of nutters] are sadly in control of the Government [I'm being serious here] and the Corporate sector...so set a very sick model for the rest to follow. The new 'religious Right' in America is very much a religion of violence, revenge and punishment - a total distortion IMO of the philosophy it was founded upon. These forces now on the rise denegrate those for peace, non-violence, altrusim, cooperation, coexistance, humanitarian solutions and self-criticsm of the society in very derogatory fashion as 'bleeding-heart' liberals, weak, pathetic, un-American, self-hating [sic], etc. The myth of America is, of course, one of the 'American Dream' and all things good and even sacharine...but this is just a myth and a PR exercise now.

Poverty in America is violence; our foreign policy is clearly very violent and a glorification of violence - even proactive, not only reactive; the death penalty is violence; the police are unbelievably violent; our business model is one of 'violence'; all agree our films and videos and computer games are filled with it; torture was just made legal; despite the myth our true history is one of violence against the Native Americans; slavery was violence and the anti-slavery and civil rights movements were met with violence; we are the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on civilian populations...and one could go on and on and on....

A very good resource on violence and the sociopathology of violence in America: http://www.omnicenter.org/warpeacecollection/violence.htm see also their violence against the environment section.

For some of the facts through a seamless collage of real footage watch "the Killing of America" (apparently it's been hard to get in the US. Is that still the case?)
http://www.angelfire.com/darkside/realmofh...r/killingof.htm
"Opening with a police shootout in which a gunman is shot dead in the middle of a busy high street...before moving onto the assassination of President John F Kennedy then looking at every other infamous violent crime that has rocked the U S A over the years.

From the race riots of the 50's, to the shooting of John Lennon, and the everyday gun violence faced by the police, the film covers a broad spectrum of their societies ills, and pulls no punches with its subject matter. Showing news reports of various police sieges and assassination attempts and even CCTV pictures of armed robberies as well as presenting interviews with the likes of Sirahn Sirahn ... serial killer Ed Kemper and good old Charlie Manson.

There's footage of the death of Martin Luther King, Texan bell tower sniper Charles Whitmore and ... perhaps the films most memorable moment ... a 3 minute scene showing the civil unrest that broke out across America's following it's participation in the Vietnam war, which is set to the tune of Buffalo Springfield's "For what it's worth".

The films main strength is that inspite of its grim subject matter its presented in a factual, and non-exploitive manner, which sets it apart from the likes of the "Faces of Death" films which were done solely to repulse the viewer.

Needless to say, the film has lost none of it's impact over the years, although my only minor criticism would be that it doesn't try to explain WHY things are as bad as they are, but never-the-less remains just as poignant today is it did then. Showing us how the American dream has gone dreadfully wrong."

For an insights into why, follow up with Michael Moore’s "Bowling For Columbine".

It is probably his best film. Interesting when he compares US to Canadian attitude towards gun crime.

For a Swedish perspective …

You're fairly free to obtain firearms in Sweden, provided that you go on a basic safety course, register with the police and undergo an inspection at home, where you demonstrate that you are storing the weapons safely and securely (you have to have an approved gunsafe and separate the breech from the rest of the weapon).

If you get done for any offence, or show any medical condition which might lead you to be suspected of using firearms wrongly, they will be seized by the police. Being arrested for drunk driving is one of these cases.

I read in my local paper of an elk hunter who collapsed while waiting in his position. He couldn't be raised on the comradio, so his team called in a search party. They found him dead drunk … and all his weapons were seized by the police the same day. He now has to apply to the court to have them restored … and will almost certainly have to undergo treatment for incipient alcoholism, plus do another course on firearms safety before he's allowed to have them back.

That sounds really good, David. Sensible. Guns are dangerous like cars, you need to be trained and licenced etc to handle a car. Why not guns too?

re "the Killing of America", from memory, it does offer ideas on 'why'. I think a theme is seeing the assassination of Kennedy as a pivotal moment when such public displays of disrespect for life started to become common place and delivered by the then new live tv, and repeated endlessly in the news, and not just a clear struggle between 'good and evil', like war for example in cinema docos, or that veterans could come home and tell (or tell through silence) of their experiences.