Is it an American thing?

Forums:
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Serial killers and workplace/campus shooting sprees seem to be mostly an American thing, but I am not out there in other countries, so I don't know for sure. Could someone enlighten me?

Do they have incidents like these in other countries?

If not, then what is it about America that spawns this type of thing?

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 2,370 • Replies: 68

No top replies

Suicide bombers are in ALOT of countries... not here yet.. but the key word is yet

0 Replies

There was a similar incident at a community college (or whatever they call them in Canadia) in Montréal a few months ago, Dawson College, where a shooter shot down 20 people, one of whom died. I guess he just wasn't as good a shot as this Korean kid.

That was not an isolated incident, either. In 1989, a shooter at the École Polytechnique in Montréal shot down 28 people, killing 14 women, and wounding ten women and four men. He is reported to have said: "You're all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists." and to have left a suicide note in which he listed 19 other "feminists" he intended to kill.

I suspect this is harder in countries with stringent gun control laws, but no impossible. The problem is in comparing only events in which you have a shooter. Suicide bombers probably have similar motivations, and in the past, it was probably easier to take down somebody with a sword or a knife that it would be to take down a shooter. Of course, centuries ago, if you got your jollies killing folks, you could just join the Crusades or the Mongols.

0 Replies

I'm not talking about terrorists or suicide bombers. That is a different thing, in my opinion.

I'm talking about seemingly "normal" people going on killing sprees.

0 Replies

Why wouldn't a suicide bomber be considered "normal" up to the point at which he strapped on the explosives and headed for the bus stop? You'd have to be crazy and suicidal to be a suicide bomber. It appears that Mr. Cho was crazy and suicidal.

0 Replies

The Canadian incidents were so called "normal" people.

There have been some in Germany that I found...

Germany, February 2002: A former pupil killed his headmaster and set off pipe bombs in the technical school he had recently been expelled from in Freising near Munich. The man also shot dead his boss and a foreman at the company he worked for before turning the gun on himself. Another teacher was shot in the face, but survived.

Germany, April 2002: Seventeen people killed after a gunman - a former pupil - opens fire in a school in Erfurt, eastern Germany. He then turned the gun on himself.

Of course the horrible one in Scotland...
Scotland, March 1996: Gun enthusiast Thomas Hamilton shoots 16 children and their teacher dead at their primary school in Dunblane, Scotland before killing himself.

0 Replies

Because usually suicide bombers have strong reasons behind what they do, based on political and/or religious beliefs. They are almost always doing what they do to accomplish something.

People like this guy at Virginia Tech don't seem to have that. It seems to me that they do what they do simply because they're batshit crazy.

0 Replies

Personally, i'd say a suicide bomber is batshit crazy. There is now a contention that Cho left a note in his dorm room in which he complains about "rich kids," "debauchery" and "campus charlatans." Sounds to me like he had mental problems and was motivated by strong hatreds. I frankly think you're attempting to make a distinction without a difference in your reference to suicide bombers.

0 Replies

kickycan wrote:

Because usually suicide bombers have strong reasons behind what they do, based on political and/or religious beliefs. They are almost always doing what they do to accomplish something.

.

so does the astranged teenage killer.

Granted, their motives are sometimes more immature situations then SOME suicide bombers, but the same thing goes.

They have such strong feelings about one thing that they believe that killing is the way to attract attention to that point.

I do see what you mean Kicky. It does feel diffrent when you are talking about a kid at a school shooting as many as he can VS the suicide bomber. even though they are almost the exact same things.

Suicide bombers have to be normal or they would be found before their mission is completed.

Teenage shooters have to be normal or they would be found before their mission is completed.

0 Replies

Nah, I think its extremely rare that someone be so crazy that they kill another person without a reason. That would require them to be so mentally deficient that they aren't even aware of what they have done. I don't believe there has ever been a mass murder where the doers didn't have some reason that made sense to them for why they should do it. Something like, "I am so sick of all these assholes making fun of me...this whole system is messed up...I cant believe that b*tch dumped me now they are going to pay" etc, which really is not any different at all from , "the USA makes the world suck, I am going to make them pay for it"

0 Replies

Serial killers are common worldwide.
Chikatilo comes to mind.

Chikatilo on Wikipedia

As for school and campus (non political) indiscriminate shootings, the US does not have the monopoly, but it's almost there. I think THAT is an American trait.

0 Replies

fbaezer wrote:

As for school and campus (non political) indiscriminate shootings, the US does not have the monopoly, but it's almost there. I think THAT is an American trait.

Okay then, let's go with that. Why is it that we have that market cornered, do you think? Anyone?

0 Replies

Western industrialized countries seem to have the biggest problems with it. Or maybe the capacity to flip your lid and self destruct while taking as many with you as possible has always been present in humans.

0 Replies

this cowboy beat the **** out of everyone in your way action movie mentality is drummed into our children from day one, and boys know because they're taught that the way to judge your worth is whether you can whip someone's ass. notice that serial killers are almost always male.

0 Replies

Kicky, I was wondering the same thing myself this morning....

We, Americans, seem to have too many killings done by a single individual, who seem to off themselves in the end or what to be killed.
And they aren't doing it for a country or a religion, they are doing it for some personal reason.

The concept is boggling to me, I don't understand.
If it's true that the U.S. has more of this than any other country, Why? What is it about us as Americans that causes one of us to do this?

I don't have any answers...
but I'll be reading along too to see what other posters think.

0 Replies

kickycan wrote:

I'm talking about seemingly "normal" people going on killing sprees.

According to the guys he roomed with, this 23 year old student wasn't normal. Likewise, his creative writing teacher thought his writing indicated a trouble personality.

0 Replies

kickycan wrote:

fbaezer wrote:
As for school and campus (non political) indiscriminate shootings, the US does not have the monopoly, but it's almost there. I think THAT is an American trait.

Okay then, let's go with that. Why is it that we have that market cornered, do you think? Anyone?

Are you talking about the mass murders in Virginia or out in that Colorado high school?

0 Replies

I think in the case of the school shooters and this young man and the people who are fired from their jobs- in a word it boils down to a sense of hopelessness and purposelessness.

I do agree there has to be the underlying trait of narcissism and the inability to hear the word, "no", but I think it's particularly prevalent in the US because of the culture of fame or infamy-maybe these kids see that they're just not gonna be able to make their mark in any particularly special way- don't look forward to having nothing really to look forward to except a lifetime of slogging through bad relationships and dead end jobs and see this as a way of "accomplishing" at least one big, "I told you so".
In some twisted way, maybe they think this will make them really special-which is what American kids during the past fifteen or twenty years have consistently been told that they are or should be, whether they really are or not.
I know this might not be a popular thought, but I also wonder about all these video games. Before this spate started in the 90's the guy in Austin was found to have had a brain tumor. All of these more recent guys don't have that excuse. Something has changed.

Kicky, I do feel safer in Europe. In almost any European country I've visited, often on my own with my fourteen year old daughter- I've never felt a moment of intimidation or hesitation to walk on the beach at night, stay in a hotel alone, etc., etc. I would never do those things in the US.
Those are just my thoughts on it.

0 Replies

aidan wrote:

I do agree there has to be the underlying trait of narcissism and the inability to hear the word, "no", but I think it's particularly prevalent in the US because of the culture of fame or infamy-maybe these kids see that they're just not gonna be able to make their mark in any particularly special way- don't look forward to having nothing really to look forward to except a lifetime of slogging through bad relationships and dead end jobs and see this as a way of "accomplishing" at least one big, "I told you so".
In some twisted way, maybe they think this will make them really special-which is what American kids during the past fifteen or twenty years have consistently been told that they are or should be, whether they really are or not.

I think I agree with almost everything in this post. I also feel that how much importance we seem to place on instant gratification in this country adds to the ability for some nut to decide that they should "just do it," as the Nike commercials say.

0 Replies

kickycan wrote:

I also feel that how much importance we seem to place on instant gratification in this country adds to the ability for some nut to decide that they should "just do it," as the Nike commercials say.

Oh - so nows its Michael Jordan's fault!

0 Replies

Forums
» Is it an American thing?

Read Discussion
Reply to All

Is it an American thing?

Quick Links

My Account

able2know