Hindsight from The New Gun Week May 10, 1999
Latest Shooting Inspires National Blame Game
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive EditorThe horrific murder of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, on April 20, accompanied by the suicide of the two teenage killers, has stirred a great national blame game that's sort of a whodunit in which guns are surprisingly just a small part.
Everyone wants to know why. Why the murders? Why teenage boys have once again terrorized America? The national media, especially television networks trying to exploit the "if it bleeds, it leads" broadcast maxim, are draining every image of tragedy out of Colorado, and bringing in armies of "experts" to seek out the causes for such horrors.
Perhaps it is to satisfy the eternal question: why? Or perhaps it is so the television gurus can prescribe the cure, instantly, and go on to the next high-profile story.
Among the usual suspects for blame are the following:
-The availability of guns did it.
-The Internet did it.
-The video games did it.
-The heavy metal music did it.
-The television violence did it.
-The movies did it.
-The Nazis did it.Of course, there are quieter, more or less insistent suggestions that "The school administrators did it," "The parents did it," and, of course, the NRA or NEA (National Education Association) did it-depending on perspective.
Suing Filmmakers
As if to underscore this national amateur detective game and add emphasis to at least one causation theory, courts in two states are being asked to take up the issue of protected "free speech" vs. Accountability. The latest suit, filed in Kentucky on April 12, was brought by the families of three girls killed during the December 1997 Heath High School murders in West Paducah. It seeks $130 million in damages from "the makers" of the 1995 movie, "The Basketball Diaries," and other entertainment media companies for "recklessly inciting 14-year-old Michael Carneal to murder."
Attorneys for the parents of Jessica James, 17, Kayce Steger, 15, and Nicole Hadley, 14, contend that the film, along with video games and Internet pornography, helped provoke Carneal's rampage that killed the teen-aged girls and wounded five others.
Suing the companies is the only way to make them responsible for the "copycat violence" caused by their products, one lawyer said, according to The Washington Times. He said he hoped the lawsuit would have a chilling effect on producers of violent movies and video games.
The lawsuit is based in part on an evaluation of Carneal by forensic psychiatrist Diane Schetky, who concluded that the "media's depiction of violence as a means of resolving conflict" provided "social reinforcement" for his "thoughts of violence."
The attorney quoted by The Times claimed that a recent Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case, that allowed a similar suit to proceed against the makers of the 1994 film "Natural Born Killers," was an important consideration to the filing of the new suit by the Kentucky parents. The lawyers believe that the high court ruling-or lack of ruling-in the Louisiana case "shows that there is no First Amendment or other (constitutional) bar to such lawsuits."
In the multi-million dollar Louisiana suit, lawyers for Patsy Ann Byers claim that two drugged-out youths, fresh from watching Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" several times in 1995, "re-enacted" the cross-country rampage depicted in the movie when they murdered a Mississippi man, then drove to Louisiana and shot and paralyzed Byers, then a young mother working as a convenience store clerk, during a robbery. Byers died in 1997 of cancer.
Stone's attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case, after a series of conflicting decisions in the Louisiana courts.
The Times editorialized about the two suits on April 14, saying, among other things:
"In some respects, these suits couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. It would be hard to explain the scenes in the movie described above ('The Basketball Diaries') or in movies like 'Natural Born Killers'as anything but appalling violence intended to shock and titillate audiences. High-minded paeans to 'art' they are not. The same goes for video games and Internet porn.
"The irony here is that all these noble artists, now looking for shelter under the First Amendment, should suddenly find themselves keeping company with the likes of tobacco and gun manufacturers or, in the political arena, right-wingers and pro-life activists. . . ."
On Point
The concluding paragraph in The Times editorial seems quite on point:
"The moral hazard of this blame game is that attempts to cast responsibility for what happened beyond the culprits themselves may end up excusing it: Carneal didn't kill the students; the videos did. . . . There's no end to the blame game. But the best way to prevent future casualties is to hold today's killers responsible for what they and they alone have done."
That was written six days before the Littleton school massacre. It probably rings true in most cases, but what happens when, as was the case in the Denver suburb, the killers commit suicide, or are not otherwise available to be held responsible for their acts. Mass psychology is such that the public, especially those closest to the murders, need closure through apprehension, trial and punishment of the culprits.
If the ongoing investigation by local, state and federal authorities in Colorado turns up additional conspirators connected to the high school shootings-bombings as has been hinted, it may provide some measure of closure. But if they do not, the demand for blaming and sanctioning others will be intense, including such speculative culprits as parents, guns, movies, videos, music, the Internet, and anyone else who will stand still.
As this blame-game whodunit continues, society will be lashing out at every possible cause of the ghastly crime, and the rights of millions of innocent people-especially teenagers-may be destroyed.
As the public debate continues, rational policy makers will keep their eye on the fact that millions of people safely and responsible acquire, keep, bear and use guns, listen to heavy metal music, watch movies and videos, play video games, use the Internet and even fantasize about mayhem without every injuring so much as an earthworm. This reality should force us to realize that not all evil or madness can be prevented, that rare individuals will do the unspeakable-acts so heinous that most people cannot conceive of them or even understand the thinking that makes them possible.
This does not mean that society should not seek out causes within itself. But it should do so very carefully, and with a serious intent, not so much on revenge, but on prevention of as many such future aberrations as possible.
One of the quickest cop-outs will be to propose more restrictive gun laws in the United States. But that will do nothing except affect the law-abiding. After all, criminals and terrorists, like the pair in Colorado, do not obey laws. There are already laws against bringing guns to school, committing murder by whatever means, making bombs and conspiring to commit even more horrible crimes. In fact, perhaps we should breath a sigh of relief that most of the bombs were not detonated. Otherwise, the plan to kill hundreds and destroy the school building might have come to pass-and the tragedy might have been even greater.
There is no such thing as absolute safety. The Australians who banned most guns following a similar massacre have seen an increase in murders by gun and armed robberies in the year that followed the new law. The British and Canadians, who passed the most restrictive gun laws imaginable in recent years, have experienced some pretty serious violent crimes in the month just before the Littleton horror. In Canada, it involved the shooting of five people; in London, the detonation of a nail bomb that injured 48.
These were only recent examples gleaned from the headlines. The point is that no matter what people wish for and politicians promise, it is impossible to pass laws that can regulate human behavior as one might hope.
It is impossible to legislate morality. You can teach it perhaps, especially in the home and community, but there are limits as the story of Cain and Abel instructs us.
It is also impossible to regulate all of the experiences of people, whether young or old. So while we my decry the violence of movies, television, music and the Internet, we cannot shut it out completely. And even if we tried, our basic freedoms would also be destroyed.
Yes, we should be looking for solutions. But we should do so with a healthy respect for the preservation of our basic and cherished freedoms. There is no quick fix.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com