posted on Jul, 31 2008 @ 08:01 PM
It is interesting that there seem to be many jumping to blame the other people on the bus for not "saving" the young man being stabbed. Other
people have commented that there is a rather wide chasm between "what I would do in that situation" and "what I'm actually capable of doing".
Blame is always a popular topic. Who do we blame for this terrible thing that happened? First, start with the guy with the knife. Then, before you
start to judge those poor people who witnessed all of this, consider the fact of what they were witness to. It's very different for those of us
sitting at computers reading about what these people witnessed first hand.
What needs to be of immediate concern is what caused this man to do what he did. There are any number of reasons he may have to justify in his mind
the actions that led him to murder this young man, but what disturbs me and what I know disturbs many others is the description of him acting
robot-like in his actions- the "mind control" element.
Was he on prescription drugs? Was he using narcotics? Does he have a history of mental problems? I wanna know what could drive a person to murder
and decapitate another individual without any known reason and in a robotic, unemotional fashion. I want to know because there could be any number of
others out there who are just as capable, who slip into black out states and do things they may not normally do. Our society, collectively, advocates
that type of behavior. Instead of worrying about what you would do and comparing it to what you believe these people were too cowardly to do
themselves, we should understand the pain of those involved, the victim's family and friends, and those who witnessed this horrible thing, and start
to work out how we can prevent it in the future. It's not just restrictions on weapons, it's understanding the nature of what leads an otherwise
normal person to robotically kill another person and then mutilate the body. It's not black and white.
When the Columbine shootings happened, everyone started to call the shooters "monsters". And while their actions were terrible and the results
devastating- it has changed the entire educational system in the US- there were reasons they did what they did. It's not simply being a monster.
People don't just wake up one day and kill innocents for no apparent reason. There is a build-up and it seems more recently there are also seemingly
benign prescriptions involved many times. The root of the problem has nothing to do with knives or guns, it has to do with the mind controlling the
hands that use them.