One Brick Short

In the Old West, a cowboy gunned down by a ‘slinger once asked those around him to forget the killer’s name, to never repeat and let the killer pass into history unknown and unglorified.

That’s what we should do to all murderers, wipe out any knowledge of their existences. Consider it shunning. As a society, if we denied the recognition sought by killers and never repeated their names, never gave them for their deeds, perhaps fewer would be inclined to mimic them.

Perhaps, if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were never mentioned, if John Wilkes Booth were forgotten, if Mark David Chapman’s identity were completely erased, and Seung-Hui Cho never heard of, perhaps there would have been no Jeff Weise, no John Hinckley, Jr., no Yolanda Saldívar and no Steven Kazmierczak. Perhaps.

I doubt it. That’s not how we’re cut out. Instead we try to find people and things to blame and ways to protect ourselves so that, should it happen again, we’ll be safe. Perhaps the new text message, cell-phone and e-mail warning systems at universities will protect our students. Perhaps informing parents that their children are suffering signs of mental illness, even when the schools cannot legally inform parents of children who are failing classes or winning scholarships, will help prevent future slayings. Perhaps, as happened Monday in Chicago and Detroit, closing down classes when scribbling in the men’s room stall make vague threats of doom and death will keep us safe.

Perhaps.

More likely, however, we will continue to kill each other for fame and glory. It’s well-documented in our culture that, if you kill a celebrity you become a celebrity. If you kill a dozen people, you are a celebrity. If you cannot rise above your own mental puddles and mediocrity you can become famous by killing someone else famous, even if you go down in flames as well.

Jack The Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, Theodore Bundy, Sirhan B. Sirhan, James Earl Ray, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby; they are household words and their names will live through history.

That’s just the way it is and the way it has been since the first infamous murderer: Cain.

Bryan,
I totally agree with you. I think we should “shun,” “ostracize,” “erase” from memory the people who commit atrocities. Let us remember the innocent people and not the perpetrators. This to me should be the punishment.

Thanks for the thoughts!

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