Roger Ebert Nails the Real Problem

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.” 

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

The documentary, "Murder By Proxy: How America Went Postal" explores the copy cat nature of mass murderers. It traces how it began and spread like a virus through postal facilities in the 1980s, then jumped to other workplaces and ultimately to public arenas. The theory that unbalanced, angry, bullied, marginalized and unhinged loners seek revenge on a world they hate and feel victimized by seems pretty convincing.

I am not a liberal, nor do I think like one, but I must relate this fact that happened about 10-12 years ago to show what is reality in America nowadays to the masses.

I was summoned to report for jury duty and was indeed chosen to sit for a murder trial. The defendant was a young black male around the age of 24-25. He was accused of shooting, and killing an innocent white guy by pumping 15 bullets into him.

The trial took four days to complete and the prosecution had a number of eyewitneses and enough evidence to prove their case easily.

The bottom line was that the shooter was convicted....His motive for the crime of murder you ask? He saw a movie called "Menace To Society" where one of the movie's thugs emptied his whole clip into a white guy and naturally killed him. He sees this movie and then wants to prove he is a big shot thug "player" by imitating the same scene in the movie in real time.

He obtains an illegal semi automatic hand gun with a 15 cartridge clip and he then plans to imitate the scene from the movie for a few months. Finally his chance to do the movie scene happens by chance and he goes ahead and does the deed. Too bad he could not keep his big mouth shut...He had to brag about what he had done ( or why do it in the first place) and he gets caught and  subsequently convicted.

So, in summation..There ABSOLUTELY will be people that will see things done in movies and will want to act them out in real life...I was on a jury for a btutal murder that proved this fact beyond any shadow of doubt.

What do Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Seung-hui Cho, Eric Harris, and Dylan Klebold all have in common?

None of them could ever throw a spiral.     

In memory of Siskel & Ebert, I'm gonna give that comment two thumbs up.........

Way up

when did a white guy get shot in menace?

i dont remember that. the only 2 white guys in that flick were dealing with chop shop and stolen cars.

o dogg emptied his glock on a korean.

and fyi, the media found out the national public will watch their every move when kennedy got shot in 63...there was only news airing for four straight days.