Reason First: Ideation Was the Case- The Virginia Tech Shooter

For a student to want to recreate the horrors of Columbine means that he had ideas. These ideas did not consist of studying and excelling at courses in pursuit of a degree. No. This student killed 30 people and wounded an additional 25 because of his ideology.

The ideas to destroy cropped up in his school work but were quickly dismissed as nothing to worry about to students and faculty.

Again, bullying seemed to be a root “cause” of the carnage but what must be remembered is that bullying can be combated with self-esteem. if an individual possesses enough knowledge of self, then they can overcome any taunts or torments from other students.

This ideation to cut down lives stems from the inability to control one’s own mind. The shooter took out these people selflessly. This means that he did not value his own life. How could he regard anyone else’s life as valuable?

Ideation is the reason for the loss of life in these scenarios. The ideas that build up in one’s mind to dismantle and tear down lives contribute to the ugliness that occurs once the dead and injured are tallied. It is the deep-seated hatred that spewed forth from the semi automatic weapons. But it’s never the tool of destruction’s fault, only the operator of the guns.

Virginia Tech marked for many the nightmare of this country which people hold to be a Second Amendment issue. Or, some will shriek that it’s mental health. And there’s some truth to that. The brain of the irrational destroyer had been corrupted by his own twisted view of existence. He found that he could not fit in the picture of more rational students. He showed no remorse or regard for the lives that he stole. Why is this? The unselfishness of it all. He had no concept of the meaning of selfishness. It means simply that an individual is one of one. There’s no dividing the mind of the individual. Flesh and tissue may be shared as in conjoined twins at the head. But their minds are independent and become their own once they are separated.

So goes with any other individual, the ideas housed in the brain are theirs and theirs alone. There is no such thing as a collective brain. The shooter at Virginia Tech had many opportunities to get his mind right. He didn’t want any of it. Ideation had become the source of his troubles. This vicious thinking pattern is what brought him to such a wicked place. By tearing past any rational ideas, the shooter brought about wanton acts of violence. No video game. No music. No movies. All of this came courtesy of the evil ideas developed by the gunman.

Just because he produced works with violence and acts of initiation of force, does that mean that psychiatrists should psychoanalyze Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino? The best way to look at the Virginia Tech shooting is at the way that the shooter processed information. While it may be important to know that he was diagnosed with selective mutism, which is where a person does not speak in certain situations because of extreme anxiety. This mental disorder could have been a factor in his ideation. But that is up to a psychologist to decide. What is apparent is the impotence of the young man. His ideations to strike down lives led him to think he was some type of superman. In his head, the only power that he possessed consisted of bringing others down at the muzzle of a gun. He was so wrong about all of this.