Canandaigua Suicide & Reaction
I don't use this much anymore, and I don't plan on starting again...actually I'd kinda like to make my own blog for my hobbies, etc. I feel the need to write on this subject though simply because whenever something provokes my philosophical thoughts like this, it's therapeutic for me to write down those thoughts in the hopes of provoking the same critical thinking in others...it helps me to not stew in my own emotions.
For those who don't live around here and don't know what I'm talking about, a high school student commit suicide in a bathroom using a sawed-off shotgun. Later, the school found incendiary devices including molotov cocktails, and a lot of ammunition in his locker. They also found a note (http://www.whec.com/article/stories/s929826.shtml?cat=565) basically saying what the kid was planning on doing, instead of killing himself. He wanted to kill his fellow students simply for the sake of killing them...not because he was bullied, just because he wanted to kill...he hated the people there for an unknown reason.
For some fluke reason that no one will ever know, he decided to take his own life instead. It was written that maybe he didn't plan the violence and just wanted to leave a questionable legacy...but he sure went through a lot of trouble to bring such violent tools into a supposedly locked school, if he wasn't going to use them. I'm going to assume that he did originally plan to do what he wrote.
Assuming that, I'm angry because now the news is reporting that the school is dealing with this event in the context of teen suicide. Let's face it here, this school dodged a horrible horrible event. Even though a student killed himself, objectively the school itself avoided a long-lasting devastating catastrophe through no effort of its own....and here they are trying to re-frame the issue as teen suicide.
If I were involved in this situation...if I had a kid in the school, or if I was in the school myself, I would march right in to the district center or wherever the people in charge are...on one side of me would be all the children of that school, and on the other side would be a veritable A-Team of lawyers and expert psychologists ready to show the emotional damages in each child resulting from the thinking, "Wow, if this kid didn't kill himself, I'd probably be dead right now. I'm only alive because of some fluke, and it has nothing to do with my school keeping me safe."
I would walk into that room and I would say, "These kids are alive only because a person with the firepower, means, and will to kill them, for some reason decided not to. What could you possibly have to say for yourselves?"
There is no excuse, nothing they could say to change the fact that this is a huge negligence, and they're just wiping their foreheads behind the curtain, completely ignorant of this "miracle" in their favor, and presenting the issue as something different. That pisses me off. If I'm misinformed about something, then I am...but I've based my thoughts here on all the information I've found on this. This isn't a simple case of teen suicide, and I think it needs to be seriously addressed on that higher context of what could have happened, what was "supposed" to happen.
For those who don't live around here and don't know what I'm talking about, a high school student commit suicide in a bathroom using a sawed-off shotgun. Later, the school found incendiary devices including molotov cocktails, and a lot of ammunition in his locker. They also found a note (http://www.whec.com/article/stories/s929826.shtml?cat=565) basically saying what the kid was planning on doing, instead of killing himself. He wanted to kill his fellow students simply for the sake of killing them...not because he was bullied, just because he wanted to kill...he hated the people there for an unknown reason.
For some fluke reason that no one will ever know, he decided to take his own life instead. It was written that maybe he didn't plan the violence and just wanted to leave a questionable legacy...but he sure went through a lot of trouble to bring such violent tools into a supposedly locked school, if he wasn't going to use them. I'm going to assume that he did originally plan to do what he wrote.
Assuming that, I'm angry because now the news is reporting that the school is dealing with this event in the context of teen suicide. Let's face it here, this school dodged a horrible horrible event. Even though a student killed himself, objectively the school itself avoided a long-lasting devastating catastrophe through no effort of its own....and here they are trying to re-frame the issue as teen suicide.
If I were involved in this situation...if I had a kid in the school, or if I was in the school myself, I would march right in to the district center or wherever the people in charge are...on one side of me would be all the children of that school, and on the other side would be a veritable A-Team of lawyers and expert psychologists ready to show the emotional damages in each child resulting from the thinking, "Wow, if this kid didn't kill himself, I'd probably be dead right now. I'm only alive because of some fluke, and it has nothing to do with my school keeping me safe."
I would walk into that room and I would say, "These kids are alive only because a person with the firepower, means, and will to kill them, for some reason decided not to. What could you possibly have to say for yourselves?"
There is no excuse, nothing they could say to change the fact that this is a huge negligence, and they're just wiping their foreheads behind the curtain, completely ignorant of this "miracle" in their favor, and presenting the issue as something different. That pisses me off. If I'm misinformed about something, then I am...but I've based my thoughts here on all the information I've found on this. This isn't a simple case of teen suicide, and I think it needs to be seriously addressed on that higher context of what could have happened, what was "supposed" to happen.