Weapons of Mass Insanity
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 07 August 2012 08:59
- Written by Martha Moitsheki
The law needs to tighten its Bat-Suit and play hero.
The world is spinning on the axis of madness as crazed gunmen are letting loose on innocent people. This brutal reality was recently evinced by the mass shooting at the screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Denver, Colorado.
This event was a walk back on memory lane to the Virginia Tech Campus shooting in 2007 and the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999. Oh, and not forgetting our very own locally-brewed spree killer, Bulelani Vukwana.
These are a few of many incidents that should give us a kick on our behinds and teach us to stop making excuses for these crazies, take a few steps back and find out what it is that we are doing wrong.
Mental illness is usually the first conclusion we jump to, forgetting that some of these men are fully well-wired people driven by factors outside the madness spectrum.
There are other causes of this kind of behaviour, such as being a social outcast or being socially awkward, being bullied, mounting family problems, alcoholism and drug abuse, bruised egos or simply attention-seeking.
The internet has set a huge platform for people to gain access to so many resources, both useful and detrimental, without any supervision or monitoring present.
Other factors that have been conceived by the media and internet are influences from movies, series, music, and the enticement of different cultures, religions and movements, video games and others.
Video games, especially, create a world where a lot of people gain power and control and without any guidance or restrictions from parents, friends and teachers; this virtual world is brought to life and these bullet-pumping incidents take place.
The streets are becoming a battlefield where people are buying firearms not only for these horrendous actions, but also for protecting themselves. The more these crazed men strike, the more people want to safeguard themselves and their loved ones – it’s a Catch-22 situation.
It was clearly easy for ‘the Joker’ to enter the premises with his weapons as there weren’t any security checks in place. Airports and casinos, for example, have more stringent security checks; the same is owed to other public places like cinemas, malls and sports arenas, as these places can be the perfect platforms for these perpetrators to orchestrate their work.
It should be clear to authorities and those sitting on the leading chairs to think of Plan B, C and D, because the measures they have put in place for gun control are clearly as useless as a fifth wheel.