Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Klar, a Vermont grass-fed beef farmer, and an attorney and pastor who lives in Westfield.
[T]he recent backlash against guns in the wake of the Florida school shooting has a distressing aspect: The media named this offender by name, vaunted him as “No. 2” in history, and amped up the gun hype that creates dangerous gun infatuation in the mentally ill.
I appreciate that gun violence is horrifying, but it always has been. What is new is this dehumanizing of human beings into targets, in a hateful revenge linked to a fantasy of instant fame. ISIS killers seek heavenly reward; mass killers seek easy, far-reaching fame, relevance in a nihilistic and alienated society. Columbine, Las Vegas, Orlando, Sandy Hook, Texas – they all share not just weapons but malicious intent. Nothing feeds this violence more than the steady drumbeat of an international platform which grants killers the stellar recognition they crave. The danger is not that a deranged and disturbed Florida killer receives fame; the threat is that all other disenchanted or disgruntled fantasists, those wannabe De Niro “Taxi Drivers,” see his fame. His fame is their motivation.
They can’t sing, so “American Idol” is out. They are too dysfunctional to get on “Survivor,” too anti-social for “Big Brother,” too ignorant for “Jeopardy,” and too articulate for the Kadashians. Saturated in hateful music, gory videos, “real-life” criminal documentaries, horror movies and a culture that validates satanism, our country’s growing domestic army of would-be mass murderers idolize Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson. They lack compassion for others, and seek their own aggrandizement through the most macabre of measurements: body count.
Focusing on “assault weapons” only aggravates the fame effect. Our future school attackers see the power of the gun granting instant access to the power of the media – the absurdly simple equation that these killers comprehend is that if they use fearsome weapons and behave horribly, they will gain more attention; more fame. Like the children they always are, if they cannot get attention positively they will seek it negatively. And what our media coverage is displaying to aspiring monsters is that the more negative they can be – the more little children and other vulnerable people they can maim or slaughter – the more global attention they will receive. The mass hysteria after Florida, linked to a name, inspires copycats who all wish to displace this 19-year-old for No. 2 spot in the halls of fame. If he’d only killed a few more, he’d be at No. 1!
Whatever the path forward in reducing school attacks and other mass killings, we must exercise common sense and stop rewarding demented attackers with overnight stardom. A criminal sanction against ever using the offender’s name in the media might actually protect children. But that is not discussed. With clueless insensitivity, our polarized media leap to sensationalize every shooting – even near shootings, where there are no injuries – to fuel their commercial or ideological interests, while increasing the future threat to our vulnerable schoolchildren.
Second Amendment supporters cringe every time there is a mass shooting; gun control advocates launch into political action with each attack, as a new opportunity to advance what they see as the sole solution. But in doing so, the left-wing media has upped the ante by amplifying the wattage of perceived limelight for the deranged. NPR has solemnly recited each “school shooting” that has occurred this year, which includes incidents like a bullet through school bus windows where no one was injured. Perhaps our “public radio” should periodically dole out medals in various categories to the killers it glorifies: gold, silver and bronze for school shooters, church attackers, night clubs, synagogues, etc. – the list could expand with new innovations in mass killing. Immediately and repeatedly proclaiming the recent Florida shooter as “No. 2” in school killings, and immediately and repeatedly naming him (perhaps six times hourly on NPR), the media essentially crowned him “Silver Medal, Schools.” And he received immensely more media coverage than any athlete in the winter Olympics.
Some would say that anti-gun activists are willing to manipulate slaughtered children to advance political ends. I am arguing something more obvious: that bestowing recognition upon these assailants, albeit via notoriety, heightens future risks whether or not it successfully advances political ends. The malice of those who would attack innocent children is driven by homicidal narcissism, not a position for or against gun control – to bait such minds with the temptation of overnight fame is immoral. Aspiring gold medalists are doubtless in training for the next Guinness Book record for maiming and murder. If we all agreed never to mention their cursed names, their only path to stardom — their chief motivation for violence — would be extinguished.
