I'd take the bus if I were you....

[HoreTore]

Gun rampage leaves 12 dead in the UK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10219655.stm)

Plus 25 wounded, at 30 different locations....

[Rhyfelwyr]

I read the guy's profile, and it's all very strange. Normally it's some high school rejects that do things like this...

[drone]

Took long enough for someone to post this. I had a new thread post prepped 4 hours ago, but it was sufficiently cynical and tasteless so I decided to hold off.

Good choice.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

My prayers go out to the many loved ones as well as the victims.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Very sad.


All so very banal. Needless, pointless.



What ever happened to the ancient art of retreating oneself to one's study, with a glass of whiskey and a gun?


It is telling of modern society that men (never women), without either courage, resolve, or sometimes sadly indeed means, to overcome difficulties, should think they ought to take revenge on faceless others rather than accept private failure or loss.

Then again, if one wouldn't be prone to blame others for one's failures, then perhaps one wouldn't be a loser in the first place.

[Hosakawa Tito]

What ever happened to the ancient art of retreating oneself to one's study, with a glass of whiskey and a gun?


Unfortunately, the modern era of 24/7 news coverage and the certain knowledge of media exposure to millions guarantees those of a narcissistic bent to continue such acts.

[Ronin]

I guess someone did´t leave a big enough tip.

[A Nerd]

What this man may have lacked was a sense of legacy and longevity of existance. What better way to prove to the world that you are timeless than to kill those who thought you lacked that and be immortilized and idealized on the omnipresent media circut. In his mind perhaps he could achieve the status of Napoleon. Shame he had to kill innocents and hurt their surviors on such a spontaneous violent frenzy instead of being content with an inevitable modest epithaph that everyone else will live on forever with. Some people seem to take their self-loathing out on others, it's quite sad.

[Kadagar_AV]

A true tragedy. I guess once in a while people just snap. One in a million or so who have the potential to snap like this would be enough to create a unpleasant environment around us. I was in England when this occurred, on vacation.

Have two small thoughts about it.

1. That maybe less of this would happen if media gave it less space. Am very not sure putting so much media coverage on it helps in the long run.

2. With that said, the final of Britain got Talent seemed to be a rather more important topic in the hearts and minds of people. Interesting.

[Idaho]

I am always suprised it doesn't happen more. Humans are remarkably restrained and sane considering the world we live in.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I am always suprised it doesn't happen more. Humans are remarkably restrained and sane considering the world we live in.

Feeling a bit postal this morning are we?

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v517/hoppy84/disg_lg.gif

[Idaho]

I wouldn't do the usual postal thing. If I was going to do it, I would take down a big ticket rather than killing a load of average folk.

[Beskar]

1. That maybe less of this would happen if media gave it less space. Am very not sure putting so much media coverage on it helps in the long run.

Reminds me of when school shootings became a national sport in America, there was a clinical psychologists recommending the steps of how the media should react.

In short, the media did the complete opposite, because they were not interested in the news or great society, but for watchers and advertisement revenue.

[Kadagar_AV]

Reminds me of when school shootings became a national sport in America, there was a clinical psychologists recommending the steps of how the media should react.

In short, the media did the complete opposite, because they were not interested in the news or great society, but for watchers and advertisement revenue.

Agreed.

I very much think media is to blame for the school shooting following the first.

First guy: sick.
Second guy: wannabe.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Hmm, upon closer scrutiny, the killer was not an ordinary bloke. He was a dangerous, agressive, misogynist sexual predator, a sadist and a serial criminal.


Or, such is my conclusion. Most of the people who knew him considered his behaviour as completely normal. And thus focus has been on tax problems, his being insulted, or other explanations.

Far from it, I think. This man has spend his entire adult life seeking to agressively control others. This, unfortunately, is regarded 'normal' behaviour. Normal, that is, until it culminated in his shooting people in the face to watch them bleed to death.


Derrick Bird 'normal'? He was a sexual predator

Normalising sex tourism doesn't just harm women in Asia – it leads people to see men like Derrick Bird as regular guys




Here is the account of a barman, Chris Bulmer, who knew Bird and witnessed his transactions with women who worked as prostitutes:

"He slept with a few of my girls upstairs and soon got a taste for it … But in the end he would only want to see one young lady in particular. She was about 22 and pretty. He became obsessed. He loved her and whenever he came back he would immediately find her, compensate the bar and take her away. She was his. And that was how he saw it".
The barman told the Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3001154/Mass-murderer-Derrick-Bird-hid-an-obsession-with-a-young-Thai-prostitute.html) that Bird was besotted and fell into a rage if the young woman wasn't available whenever he wanted her. In the end, according to Bulmer, she became terrified of Bird and ran away. It isn't clear whether he later sent money to this woman or another he'd met in Thailand, but the pattern – inadequate man seeks to dominate woman working in the commercial sex industry – is familiar. Often such men explain their behaviour as a manifestation of love but it's actually about control, a fantasy-driven compensation for the slights and insults they perceive in everyday life. She was his. And that was how he saw it. She no doubt saw if very differently, but was paid to behave otherwise until she got scared and fled.


The widespread cultural imperative to normalise sex tourism by Western men in south-east Asia is a barrier to admitting how damaging the trade is to women. But it also does something else: prevent us from seeing at an earlier stage that there is something very seriously wrong with men like Bird.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/08/derrick-bird-sex-tourist