I know I’m not the first to say it, but I’ll still say it on the off chance someone will listen.
Suicide spree killers are only doing it for the publicity.
They’ve been nothing their “whole” lives (like 19 years is a long time to suffer living) and now, even if it’s in death, they are something. This kid Hawkins was a loser, and I can see how he might decide to give up. But he didn’t need to take eight people with him. So why did he?
I know that the families of the victims probably want to be heard, want their loved ones memorialized in some way. They don’t want to feel like the death is swept under the rug and their life was in vain. But in the interest of future victims, we need to stop making such a big deal out of these spree killers. A local news story should suffice. Report it like any other murder in the city. But don’t blow it up to some sensational national headline. That will only encourage other losers to go down in a blaze of glory at some future date. If they don’t think they will gain some sort of posthumous notoriety, they will off themselves in the privacy of their own homes, and no one else has to suffer.
i disagree! if any of these kids are doing it for the publicity, they would do something that wouldn’t hurt themselves. they would bomb a building, and try to get away with it.
what you are glossing over is the word ‘depression.’ if they weren’t depressed, would they have killed anybody?
that should be the focus. there are a bazillion modern things that cause it, and it is epidemic.
I do not mean to say that these kids are not depressed or suicidal. Alas, I have no solution for that. I only mean to suggest that the reason that they choose to take their lives in such a grandiose manner – rather than in the privacy of their own bedroom, let’s say – is for the posthumous notoriety.