Mall Shooter Sought Fame & Forgiveness

In his suicide note he said he was sorry, but he said so much more. The note made reference to not being a burden to anyone anymore and then the disturbing line, "I have been a piece of shit all my life, now I’ll be famous."

With that the boy, 19 years old, became "the gunman" referred to by the news media. This boy, who had just lost his job at McDonald’s took an SKS assault rifle and went down to the mall. There he began shooting people randomly to achieve his fame. What he left was a tragedy of 9 people dead and many more wounded but I will not use his name, that would bring him the "fame" he wanted.

Whatever went wrong in his life, in his mind and in his character, the story says something about us as well. It says that in our society, we can value fame over life, we can value violence as a way to solve problems and we can express our sorrow for our actions, yet still go on to commit murder. Surprisingly, I don’t find this mind-boggling. I see very clearly how a young man could develop these beliefs.

As a society we endorse killing as a way to stop killing. We do this in our capital murder cases with the death penalty and we do this in our politics with "preemptive wars". As a society we value fame over character. We reward the vapid troubled celebrities like Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears, yet find little compassion for people who work 6 to 7 days a week just to make ends meet in our inner cities. As a society, and particularly in some forms of religion, we value hollow words over actions and character.

I do not excuse what this disturbed man did. It is horrible and tragic for him, his victims and their families. I understand how he could have reached the conclusions he did, and that is what bothers me more. I am disturbed by living in a society where his actions might indeed bring him fame and where others might see him as an example of how they too might achieve it. Fame, or in this case infamy should have less value, but only we can weigh the costs. Only we can change our currency from the gilded shine of celebrity to the solid rock of love and compassion.