Finally, a student gunman gets it right

[hjmick]

Yeah, I realize that by ignoring the tragedy of this youth's suicide, by not acknowledging the underlying reasons that led to his actions, by appearing unsympathetic, I run the risk of coming across as a callous prick, but I can live with that. I am so sick of these asswads taking out bystanders that it is almost a celebratory event when one just kills himself.

The biggest tragedy is the effect witnessing the boy's suicide will have on the students who witnessed his selfish escape. Better he should do it alone in his room.

Report: Student Kills Self in Front of 150 Classmates at Alabama High School
Thursday, March 06, 2008

An Alabama high school student walked into the school gym Thursday morning and shot himself in front of 150 other students, WKRG.com reported.

Jajuan Homes, 18, reportedly fired one shot into the ceiling of the gym at Davidson High School in Mobile before turning the revolver on himself as other students watched...

Student Kills Self

And just for the record, this is tragic, I do wonder what could be so bad at the age of 18 that a person would want to end his or her life. With amount of professional help available to everyone in this overly coddled world we currently find ourselves, I see no reason for these sorts of thing to happen. I feel for his parents and their loss. There can be nothing worse than to outlive one's children, no matter what the circumstances.

I am just pleased that he decided there was no reason to take anyone else with him.

[Hagbard Celine]

Maybe he had a wicked case of timid peter that made him avoid contact with girls so he became depressed, played more and more RPG video games in his mom's basement and decided to just do us all a favor.

[avatar4321]

Maybe he had a wicked case of timid peter that made him avoid contact with girls so he became depressed, played more and more RPG video games in his mom's basement and decided to just do us all a favor.

Talking from personal experience huh?

[Little-Acorn]

Comparing this guy to recent mass school shooters, church shooters, etc., is 100% wrong.

The others had no concern for the lives of the people around tham, and saw nothig wrong with murdering them just to satisfy whatever warped desires the shooter had.

This guy DID have concern for the lives and welfare of the people around him, at least enough that he declined to shoot them when he had the chance. That puts him in a whole different category.

This guy had problems, obviously - enough that he thought killing HIMSELF was a good thing to do. I don't pretend to guess what kind of pain, depression, or etc. he may have been going through. But he did NOT have the kind of warped mind that takes such pain as sufficient excuse to start randomly killing anybody he could find. He was still a decent human.

That lack, puts him into a completely different category from the mass murderers. In short, he was still human, however much pain or despair he was feeling.

[hjmick]

Comparing this guy to recent mass school shooters, church shooters, etc., is 100% wrong.

The others had no concern for the lives of the people around tham, and saw nothig wrong with murdering them just to satisfy whatever warped desires the shooter had.

This guy DID have concern for the lives and welfare of the people around him, at least enough that he declined to shoot them when he had the chance. That puts him in a whole different category.

This guy had problems, obviously - enough that he thought killing HIMSELF was a good thing to do. I don't pretend to guess what kind of pain, depression, or etc. he may have been going through. But he did NOT have the kind of warped mind that takes such pain as sufficient excuse to start randomly killing anybody he could find. He was still a decent human.

That lack, puts him into a completely different category from the mass murderers. In short, he was still human, however much pain or despair he was feeling.

I see your point and don't necessarily disagree, but I do question the motivation behind performing this act at school in front of almost 200 classmates. With a revolver he obviously wouldn't be able to take many with him, if that was his plan to begin with. I'm not saying it was, but it quite possibly could have been and he simply had a change of heart.

If his intent was merely to kill himself in front of an audience, I question how much concern he truly had for those around him. The scars of witnessing this brutal and tragic event will stay with these kids for the rest of their lives. Many will require counseling for the rest of their lives and I dare say that more than one will be stirred to similar actions.

[Hagbard Celine]

Talking from personal experience huh?

Yes. In highschool I suffered from a terrible case of timid peter. Much like you I hid my shame in the form of chronic self-flagellation and video game fixation. I tell you though, going on a homicidal rampage and then committing suicide was the best thing I ever did. I really opened a lot of doors for me.

[trobinett]

Yeah, I realize that by ignoring the tragedy of this youth's suicide, by not acknowledging the underlying reasons that led to his actions, by appearing unsympathetic, I run the risk of coming across as a callous prick, but I can live with that. I am so sick of these asswads taking out bystanders that it is almost a celebratory event when one just kills himself.

The biggest tragedy is the effect witnessing the boy's suicide will have on the students who witnessed his selfish escape. Better he should do it alone in his room.



And just for the record, this is tragic, I do wonder what could be so bad at the age of 18 that a person would want to end his or her life. With amount of professional help available to everyone in this overly coddled world we currently find ourselves, I see no reason for these sorts of thing to happen. I feel for his parents and their loss. There can be nothing worse than to outlive one's children, no matter what the circumstances.

I am just pleased that he decided there was no reason to take anyone else with him.

Didn't read any responses hjmick, just thought yours mirrored mind so well I'd give you the big up.

[Little-Acorn]

I see your point and don't necessarily disagree, but I do question the motivation behind performing this act at school in front of almost 200 classmates. With a revolver he obviously wouldn't be able to take many with him, if that was his plan to begin with. I'm not saying it was, but it quite possibly could have been and he simply had a change of heart.

And it's precisely that change of heart, that puts him on the side of the angels, as it were. The shooters who blew away large numbers of people, did not have that change of heart... becuase, I maintain, they are warped, deep down, into something inhuman. This guy, depressed and messed up though he was, did not have that last little bit of madness. And that makes all the difference: He could have killed a number of innocent people, but he chose not to, unlike the mass murderers.

If his intent was merely to kill himself in front of an audience, I question how much concern he truly had for those around him.

Why bother? He had enough concern left for them, to decide not to blow them away. At this stage, that's all **I** want to know about the guy. Sure, he was messed up. What suicidal person isn't? That's not the question. The question is, is he so messed up that he decides to take a lot of innocent people with him, or not?

If you want people to be perfectly well adjusted, you're asking the impossible. All of us have slight problems here and there, and sometimes we don't react as well as we could have. A few have such severe problems that they contemplate suicide, and a very few even kill themselves. But there's a big, black line drawn between those, and the occasional one who decides to kill lots of random innocents as well. That person doesn't just have severe problems in life. He is missing something that makes the rest of us (even the suicidals) fundamentally human.

Severe though his problems undoubtedly were, and imperfect though is handling of them was, the guy who killed himself in the gym is nonetheless on the "good" side of that big black line, just as nearly everyone else is. The mass murderers are on the other side of it.

[Microcosmos]

It's impossible to get inside the guy's head, but I'll bet he knew the damage he was doing when he killed himself. Why fire a shot into the ceiling unless he wanted to know that everybody saw him do the deed? I think the guy is far from an angel.

[Microcosmos]

meant to say was far from an angel...Though I have to admit, not having homicidal tendencies makes him less of a murderer, but a murderer nonetheless...

[Yurt]

Yes. In highschool I suffered from a terrible case of timid peter. Much like you I hid my shame in the form of chronic self-flagellation and video game fixation. I tell you though, going on a homicidal rampage and then committing suicide was the best thing I ever did. I really opened a lot of doors for me.

[Little-Acorn]

meant to say was far from an angel...Though I have to admit, not having homicidal tendencies makes him less of a murderer, but a murderer nonetheless...

He murdered nobody.

Murder is the intentional killing of others. Some say it's the intentional killing of others who didn't want to be killed. This guy did neither. The difference is huge. It's baffling that you cannot see this.

[hjmick]

It would seem as if his intent was to hurt only himself, though he did threaten a coach who approached him when he took center court. Apparently he had recently been charged in a robbery case.

While I agree with you, LA, that he is not in the same category as these mass shooters we hear about (my initial post was worded mainly to stoke the embers of discussion), the very fact that he brought a loaded gun onto the campus puts him in the discussion if for no other reason than the potential harm that could have ensued.

In another vein, he carried that gun into the gym, the other student saw the gun and had no idea what his intentions might be, I'd imagine that there was more than a little fear or terror for them concerning their safety, the fact that he felt the need to expose some 150 classmates to what will probably the heinous vision they will ever see makes him, in my opinion, not too much better than those mass shooters or even a terrorist. This may strike you as a tad extreme, but if you consider that a terrorists most successful weapon or tool is the fear they instill in people, the ability to change the way people live, then what would you call him? There is no way that the kids who witnessed the suicide will be unaffected. For the rest of their lives the images what they saw will be imprinted in their memory. There will be nightmares. There will be many who will be in counseling for the better part of their lives. There will probably be at least one who commits a similar act. The consequences of this kids selfish act performed publicly will be far reaching for a very long time.