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LoveWithBoundaries

12-Year-Olds Stabbing 12-Year-Olds: Are We Paying Attention Yet?

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I read about this story early yesterday morning. And I thought about it often throughout the day, just shaking my head.

I seem to be doing that a lot lately—and I don’t like it.

But I have to admit, it took me a while before sitting down to write about this because I kept thinking to myself, “Should I write another piece that deals with the hideous violence we keep experiencing and hearing about day after day? What difference will it make if I do?”

Now, the last thing I want is to become jaded—as a therapist, I often hear stories from clients about what has happened to them, about the post-traumatic stress they deal with on a daily basis—and there are times when it makes my hair stand on end as I witness the viciousness they have endured in their lives. Sometimes that cruelty has come from their parents, sometimes from others who have been in positions of trust, sometimes from cyber-bullying that fuels their already shameful feelings about themselves. Life has not been easy for so many of us—and this is just our reality, I suppose. I do often wonder whether it really has to be this way, and how it can change. Sometimes I wonder if anything I do really helps anyone I’m trying to help. When I do see that I can contribute to the world in positive ways—that people feel even a little better after talking with me—I feel glad and grateful.

And then I read a story like this one, about two 12-year-old girls who—with deliberate premeditation—decided to repeatedly stab another 12-year-old girl they knew, with the intention of killing her.

And truly, I don’t know what to think—or even how to express my feelings about it.

Apparently, these girls were heavily influenced by a website they were into—one that I don’t even want to name here, just like I don’t want to keep naming the other killers who have betrayed us as a society in recent years, months, weeks, and days. This information is available if you want to Google it yourself—it’s not something I wish to perpetuate.

But I will say this—there is something really sick and twisted about the people who put up websites like this, and something very neglectful about parents who don’t take the time to know where their 12-year-old children are spending their time, both online and off. And yes, there are likely some mental health issues with these two girls—or maybe they are just by-products of a society that has become so full of these kinds of lurid influences that our children can so easily get their hands on.

Two 12-year-old girls wanted to kill another 12-year-old girl! Are we no longer shocked by this?

Will it just be that girl’s parents who will try—probably in vain like all the other parents whose children have been wounded and murdered—to get something done about this, to try to change something, somehow, so that no other children have to experience the misery their daughter is now going through?

I’m thankful that this girl didn’t die, but instead lived to name her attackers so that they could be brought to justice. But where is the real justice for the culture that enables these kids and contributes to them turning out like this? And even though the victim lived to tell about it—this time—I can’t even imagine what her life will be like going forward from something like this. I deeply hope she can get the ongoing help she will undoubtedly need, probably for a long time, to be able to recover from this both physically and emotionally, as fully as she possibly can.

I for one am totally enraged and sick of this ongoing violence. I wish I had answers for us about what to do about it. Maybe we need to revisit ‘freedom of expression’ on the Internet—but if I start talking about that, will I be the lone voice in the throngs of millions who will pooh-pooh what’s happened here as just a fluke, something that doesn’t happen very often?

But really, think about it. Isn’t one time too often?

It could have just as easily been your 12-year-old—daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, friend, neighbor, student. I wonder what violent travesty we’ll be hearing about next.

Aren’t you as scared and sick of it as I am?

Yet Another Shooting Spree: Will This Madness EVER End?

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I saw the news today—oh boy…

We are all shocked and outraged by Elliot Rodger’s shooting spree in Isla Vista, California—with 3 legally purchased handguns and over 400 rounds of ammunition. I can understand us being outraged—but shocked? Really??

Two reasons we’re hearing so much about this shooting are: 1) the assailant’s father is the assistant director of the Hunger Games movies—unfortunately, a little celebrity seems to go a long way—and 2) the 22-year-old perpetrator was already known to have some pretty disturbing mental health issues and was well-known to police. But there he was, with legal guns and plenty of ammo. We are also being shown footage of the very irate and distraught Richard Martinez father of Chris, a boy slain by Rodger, loudly imploring, “WHEN ARE WE GOING TO END THIS MADNESS??”

I’d like an answer to that too.

How long will it take before we all truly, deeply understand that because of lax gun laws all over our planet, this could happen without any warning to anyone at any time—the next time, when we least expect it, could be you or me or someone we love. Why is it only the parents and other loved ones of those killed by this creepy ongoing asinine insanity who are coming forth and asking the right questions?

How many more times DOES this have to happen? Why do we not understand that the politicians we elect, whose often outrageous salaries WE pay for, need to be responsible for holding the bad guys accountable. And that maybe the ‘bad guys’ are not only the ones who shoot, maim, and kill innocent people, but are also the ones who refuse to stop playing political nicey-nice with organizations like the US’s NRA.

Sometimes I feel like we’re living in the Wild West all over again, all over the world. Shootings and stabbings happen all too often where I live in Vancouver, as well as other parts of Canada, too. Shortly after I heard about Rodger’s coldly premeditated murder spree on the news again tonight, I saw a commercial featuring a small child at a music recital playing the violin off-key while proud parents looked on. I started to wonder what could happen at such a gathering if someone had a gun and just simply didn’t like the way the child was playing. It boggles the mind.

Some of you might say, “Oh come on, Candace, don’t be ridiculous—that would never happen!” But who ever thought Sandy Hook would happen? Who ever thought a crazy man dressed as the Joker would open fire at a movie theatre? Or that a University of Calgary student would stab 5 other students to death, just… because… ?

So—is it really going to take someone we love being stabbed or shot, injured or killed before we truly take this seriously? Is this how we really want to live?

Can we stop wringing our hands long enough to actually develop some workable strategies about what we can collectively do about this? Or do we all just passively hope and pray that today isn’t our day to die—or to find out that someone we love just has? How much more societal enabling do we have to put up with before we figure out a way to come together and stop the insanity?

More Violence—Over a 22-Cent Soda Tax! Whaaat???

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This morning I heard about a man who was upset about having to pay a 22-cent tax on his bottle of soda.

In a Chicago convenience store, he began to rant and rave about it before pulling a submachine gun out of his satchel. He threatened to kill everyone in the store, also telling a few customers that he was going to shoot each of them several times in the head. The whole incident was caught on the store’s surveillance cameras. Thankfully the police arrived in time to subdue him.

Later it was discovered that the gun had five live rounds of ammunition in one magazine, eight in another, and one in the chamber. It’s an absolute miracle that no one was hurt—not physically, at least—although I imagine that the emotional trauma this incident caused those who were there was mammoth.

It was because of a soda tax—this time. What do you suppose it’ll be about next time—maybe a broken shoelace? Will you be in the place where it happens next time?  Will your children? What about your spouse, your friends, your neighbour?

Ok, I know what some of you are going to say—that this was one isolated incident; that this kind of thing doesn’t happen very often and not in OUR town; that statistically violence is down and why am I worried about this anyway? Believe it or not, in my other recent blog posts about violence in schools (specifically in Pennsylvania and at the University of Calgary), I actually have had some people leave comments like that. Another guy sent me a detailed email with specific links telling me that there is no scientific proof that violence in the media contributes to the blatant and very disturbing violence we’re seeing all around us—even in convenience stores now because someone with entitlement issues happens to be disgruntled about a soda tax.

Basically the email sender was telling me that because scientists have not come up with any definitive links to what’s going on, I should stop having the (very strong) opinion that the violence we and our children are subjected to in the media, all around us every single day, is influencing the violence we’re seeing more and more of in our world—and that I should stop seeing all of this as a big deal. As a friend of mine likes to say, “There are no right answers to the wrong questions.”

And my answer to these kinds of rational lies is, “So what?”

So what if there is no scientific proof? Do we, as a general public, understand that the scientific community is often far behind when it come to our safety issues? (Do GMO’s ring a bell? What about the fact that there isn’t a cure for cancer yet?) Why do we have to take the word of a scientist—or the word of a guy who takes the word of a scientist as some kind of gospel—when we can very easily see exactly what’s happening?

How much more of this lunacy are you willing to put up with? How much longer do you want to be scared of going to buy something at 7-11, or attending a house party as a celebration of a wonderful event, or sending your children and grandchildren off to school each day? This horrible violence is bound to happen again, somewhere else, today or tomorrow, maybe in my neighborhood or yours—how can any of us think it won’t?

And we’re supposed to wait around for a scientist to make a link between violence on the street and violence in the media? Or maybe we’re waiting for ‘someone else’ to do something about all of this, so that we don’t have to get involved. How much more denial can we possibly be in?

Let’s remember that if we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem. If we don’t take a united stand—NOW—in whatever ways each of us can, we will truly have no one to blame but ourselves.

…And the Stabbings Continue… What’s Really Going On?

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I am an alumnus of the University of Calgary, having graduated from that school in 1973. Just a few days ago, I wrote about a school stabbing in Pennsylvania. Now, five young U of C students are dead—all stabbed to death, allegedly by a ‘friend’ of theirs.

Of course, the irony is blatant—the alleged killer, another young student at the U of C, is the son of a 33-year veteran policeman in Calgary. I can’t help but wonder—could this boy possibly have been trying to send his father some kind of crazy, cryptic, unconscious message? How better to completely betray his law-abiding dad than to commit murder—5 times over?

Here in my beautiful, amazing city of Vancouver, there have now been two stabbing incidents in as many days as a result of domestic violence—one even involved a baby who was stabbed—and I just heard on the news that there was another stabbing, this time seemingly random, by a man in a Regina, Saskatchewan shopping mall.

What is really going on here??

A close friend of two of the University of Calgary boys who were killed called this latest tragedy “infuriating.” I couldn’t agree more.

Has all this violence gotten our attention yet? Has anyone you know been murdered yet, or murdered someone else? Does that actually have to happen—do we have to know the people involved personally—before we decide to rise up as a society and say NO! to the violence that’s all around us? What will it take to choose to stand up against it? What more has to happen for our eyes to finally open?

You may be wondering, “But what can I do? I’m only one person.” In my opinion, that’s a great question to ask. What can each of us do? What can YOU do?

As I wrote in my recent blog post about the Pennsylvania school stabbings, I don’t believe we can discount the impact that the violence surrounding us on a daily basis has, especially on young, fragile, or already-disturbed minds. We see it on our TV’s continually. It’s in the movies that we pay hard-earned money to go and watch. It’s especially in those brutally violent video games we turn a blind eye to—the ones that far too many of our children and grandchildren are already addicted to and play on an ongoing basis.

So—what are we going to do about this?

Well, maybe the first thing we all need to do is come out of our own denial and recognize that children don’t know how to emotionally process this kind of ongoing violence. When kids see people shot and stabbed on TV or in a movie or video game, they don’t understand that death is final—people don’t come back from that. We see this in the ever-increasing number of young children who find their parents’ guns in the closet, imitate what they’ve been watching by pointing it at their siblings or friends, and pulling the trigger.

Bang! Isn’t that fun?

They just don’t get it.

People with certain mental health issues don’t understand the finality of death either—while others somehow feel it’s their right to end another person’s life. It’s not. It never is.

But we keep watching the violent TV shows, we tune into the news programs that feed us nothing but negativity day and night in order to ensure their ratings, we sit through movies we’ve actually paid for, watching violent act after violent act, each often more brutal than the next.

And if we’re not irresponsibly buying these awful video games for our children ourselves, we’re at the very least turning a blind eye while they play them for hours and hours and hours.

We allow organizations like the NRA get away with deciding that background checks are not necessary for people wanting to buy a gun.

How on earth can we then, as a primarily intelligent society, ask the question, “How could this happen??”—when five innocent, promising university students are stabbed to death in cold blood? How can we be shocked and appalled when we hear newscasts about domestic violence—more and more often leading to innocent deaths?

How can any of us feel safe anywhere?

Rise up, people! Please—the time is NOW to speak your truth—if not now, when? How much longer will you choose to feel powerless when you actually are not?

Demand change from the elected officials who want your votes in the next election too. Stop keeping your TV on channels showing violent programming—and for heaven’s sake, stop paying money for these awful, ridiculously brutal movies! This only gives the producers of this endless drivel the encouragement to create more of the same. Let’s all be more self-respectful and take our families bowling instead, or for a picnic in the park.

That is, if we’re not afraid that someone with a gun or a knife might be waiting for us there.

Photo: From Calgary Herald video clip

More High School Violence: How Fed-Up Are You?

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I don’t personally know Alex Hribal, the 16-year-old boy who recently decided to go on a stabbing spree in a Pennsylvania high school.

Those who do know him give the same profile of many of these other kids who have committed similar atrociously violent acts—saying that he is aloof, quiet, and has never caused trouble before.

But with premeditation, this boy walked into his school and began stabbing and slashing other students, as well as anyone else who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

What strikes me as even more crazy than Hribal’s seemingly irrational act, and all of the similar violence that has come before his, is the fact that authorities seem to be stymied about why and how this could occur.

Really?

Do they not have any idea of the kind of non-stop violence that kids are watching on TV these days? What about the movies our children pay good money to see, often money that parents give them—in good faith—to go and ‘have fun’? How many people choose to ignore the horrendously violent video games so many kids play, sometimes hour after hour after hour, day after day? Have you watched the news lately and seen the horrible aggression that occurs every day, somewhere in the world? Could it be that we, as a society, wonder where Hribal’s violence is coming from when we turn a blind eye to what so many of our children are really doing?

Okay, I can hear the naysayers already, some who will respond to this blog post, saying I’m overreacting or that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve gotten used to those kind of comments—and I know that they will likely be coming from the ones actually watching these vicious—and in my humble but strong opinion—completely unnecessarily violent TV shows and movies, and playing these insanely brutal video games, all chock full of gratuitous violence. Deep in our heart of hearts, as a collective society, how can we be surprised by this kind of over-the-top violent behavior from our kids when we allow them—our leaders of tomorrow—to be fed on this these ‘killing sprees’ in the various forms of media day in and day out?

Now I know there are many people who watch senseless violence without going out and committing acts of overt aggression. But I also know that covert acts of aggression can be damaging as well. Violence, it appears, begets violence—we see this with the issue of bullying all the time. And the aggression we’re all exposed to each day, even when we try to stay away from it, often creates emotional and mental health concerns such as anxiety, depression in many of us, often leading to excessive anger, hostility, and suicidal and homicidal ideation in people who aren’t emotionally and mentally healthy.

And, of course, it’s especially traumatic when it hits us where we happen to live.

Even with all those beautiful little children who were shot to death at Sandy Hook, the NRA still maintains its stance that everyone deserves and has the right to own a gun, and that no background checks need to be done in an attempt to weed out those who are not emotionally stable.

Huh??

Even after that devastating shooting at the Aurora movie theatre where the guy dressed up as the Joker from a Batman movie, or the more recent Fort Hood shootings, we are still pleading ignorance—preferring instead to wring our collective hands and ask, “How could this happen?” We still, as a collective audience, slap down our 10 bucks to go see incredibly violent movies—thus enabling the filmmakers to continue to make them. We keep our TV’s tuned into shows like The Black List and NCIS and Hawaii 5-0, giving the Powers-That-Be in television land the idea that we condone this senseless violence. Why wouldn’t they think we’re asking them to give us more of the same?

Just as with widespread drug addiction, climate change, pipelines, and rampant sugar addiction leading to obesity, illness and premature death, we need to open our eyes to this issue too—and not keep telling ourselves the rational lies that enable this violence to continue.

If we don’t, it may be your child next time, either stabbed or shot—or actually doing the stabbing and shooting.

My questions would be: What if we stopped buying it? What if we stopped watching it? What if we encouraged our kids to stop glorifying this violence too, by spending more time with them doing other things? What if we voted with our wallets? What if, as in the great movie Network, we raised our united voices together and said “We’re fed up, and we’re not gonna take it anymore!”

And what if we began to do this before any more of our kids kill or get killed?

Photo: cnn.com