A few days ago news broke of another shooting and mass killing, this time in Omaha of all unlikely places.
Over the next several hours, updates flashed. They fell into an all too familiar pattern:
- Eight known dead
- Several wounded
- The shooter killed himself before the police arrived
More bits and pieces were reported, adding to the story. By the following morning, the news channels and the main-stream media had their whole standard template filled with the specifics, allowing this latest mass murder to be the lead feature, hour after hour, show after show.
The killer had been positively identified. Was anyone surprised to learn it was another young man, a loner, a loser, a misfit? An outsider, a quiet kid who kept to himself, a little lost, just trying to find himself. Like thousand of kids in every city and town, in every state.
His weapon was variously reported as, an assault rifle, an AK47, or a Russian SKS. The description was embellished with phrases like, thirty-round clip, military style, or high-powered, as if those specifics really mattered.
The killer's family and friends were contacted. Those that wanted ended up on the tube telling the world how surprised they were, how they never thought something like this was possible, how the killer had gone through a tough time, how the killer was confused, they talk as if an irrational act can be rationalized. .
In the aftermath, the usual talking heads each posed their own version of the usual questions:
- What drove this unfortunate young man to this terrible act?
- Are stricter gun laws the answer?
- Who is to blame?
Who is to blame?
Think about it.
There have been thousands of confused kids living lives of quiet desperation for as long as there have been kids. In this country, guns have been a part of our culture from day one; they came over with the pilgrims. In the past, there were occasional acts as terrible as this, but they were usually separated by decades, not months or weeks.
Anyone old enough to have voted for, or against, George Bush Forty One, can remember when schools, college campuses, shopping malls, and churches were all safe places. Safe enough that being shot didn't make a parent's top ten list of worries when the kids were away from home.
What's changed in just a few years?
One thing that is new, a recent addition to American life, is cable news channels and the twenty-four hour news cycle.
Want to know what's going on, any time, every day, just tune in. When it comes to a story like the Omaha shootings, the choice of channels doesn't really matter. With the news media locked in to a constant struggle for ratings, all the outlets seem to follow the old adage, if it bleeds, it leads. The more it bleeds, the longer it leads, at least until something bloodier comes along.
The Omaha killer's suicide note explains the connection. He had seen the coverage of the recent mass murders, probably beginning with the Colorado school shootings. He knew what would happen. “I'm going to be famous,” his note said.
Since the beginning, fame has had a fatal attraction for losers. When asked how to become famous, the ancient Greek oracle is said to have answered, “kill the most famous man of your time.” Both John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald proved the oracle was right.
So for thousands of years, the rich and famous have had to be protected by retainers, bodyguards, or Secret Service Agents from crazies out to get their name in the history books.
Now the media has changed the equation, taking all the work out of gaining fame. There's no longer any need for an elaborate plan or to schedule travel to be at a certain place at a certain. All the crazy has to do is adopt the right look, the long Matrix style coat or urban camo, and go to almost any public place with a lot of targets and shock value. Kill more than a couple completely innocent people, on an otherwise slow news day, and the media will do the rest.
The killer will get more than his fifteen minutes. His name will be reported over and over. Pictures, the more normal the better, will be shown repeatedly every hour until the image is ingrained into the minds of millions.
How many lost, confused, kids, among those millions will have the seed planted. Sometime, maybe next week, or next month, or next year, when things just aren't working out, will those images return and this time as the solution. After all, fame is the name of the game.
So, who is to blame?
Is it the media for making these poor, pathetic kids into cultural icons, or is it us for watching silently, and letting the media do it.
