school shooting and music...here we go!

[SpellboundByMetal]

From blabbermouth.net

23-year-old Korean student Cho Seung-Hui, who has been identified as the gunman at the Virginia Tech University massacre, wrote a play which takes its name from the GUNS N' ROSES song "Mr. Brownstone" and tells of a crew of 17-year-olds who skip school to gamble at a casino and fantasize about killing their professor. The play apparently goes through the lyrics of the entire GN'R song, relating Mr. Brownstone to the teacher the main characters want to kill.

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe ... emID=70750

I HATE when people say music is an influence for killing. why isnt rap blamed for all the murders in compton?!

[BDR]

Well, we all know that Judas Priest and their subliminal messages made those two kids commit suicide all those years ago, right ...

IMO, this killer, along with most other nut jobs in this world, are a product of upbringing, pure and simple. It sickens me, as well, when people start pointing to TV, music, video games, etc., as the reason someone's ƒü©ked up. I've played "Grand Theft Auto," "Mortal Kombat" and other violent video games and never have I ever stolen someone's car, then mowed over innocent pedestrians with it, nor have I ever cut someone's head off with a Samauri sword.

Bad parents need to be held accountable for what they raise and we as a society need to stop giving these people "easy outs" for their failures.

r:>)

[orangekick]

I knew it wouldn't take them long to tie this to music or video games.

[xironxmaidenx909]

haha nice rob

[DirtySanchez]

Music is always blamed for bad shit but, never credited with good.

How many dudes got laid cuz they stole Axl's look?
Where the credit.

Of course if that happens people bands will start getting sued for child support. I can see it now, "I never woulda let Jimmy do me without a condom, but Talk Dirty To Me was playing and I can't control myself when that song comes on." Poison- The date rape band.

[bassist_25]

It would be more believable if murderous rampages were correleated with listening to Justin Timberlake.

In all seriousness, there are no links to "subliminal messages" and behavior. If these scapegoaters took the time to look in any peer-reviewed journal, they would find that out for themselves. The subliminal message argument is just hype created by the media and people who got their doctoral degrees out of Crackerjack boxes.

[lonewolf]

If this murderer actually sat down and wrote a play that gives insight on his twisted character, I'd call that newsworthy.

What may suck is how the media presents it. Watch to see if the media focuses on the play or the GnR connection.

[BDR]

If this murderer actually sat down and wrote a play that gives insight on his twisted character, I'd call that newsworthy.

What may suck is how the media presents it. Watch to see if the media focuses on the play or the GnR connection.

Here's where vigilance comes into play. If this guy displayed homicidal tendencies, both in his writings and in his general demeanor, then this guy's professors, classmates and other peers maybe should've stepped up and said something.

He bought these guns a month ago and was writing stories about kids killing their professor long before that, so the Monday morning quarterbacks in the crowd can say the "writing" was on the wall.

Red flags or harmless creative writing from someone who likes to keep to himself? Who knows. The people in this guy's own dorm said he was "weird" and unresponsive to people reaching out and trying to be his friend. What do you do in cases like this?

As someone else said in another thread, the last thing we want to do is create a police state or penalize people for expressing themselves.

IMO, there's no way to defend against a tragedy llike this, just like a "9/11-like" attack is pretty much indefensible. you can only react. If a crazy person is gonna take people out, he or she will at least get started.

Security protocols take over after that and determine how long the nut job gets to keep going. Sending out a mass e-mail and nothing else is a pretty lame response when you have two dead an no suspect in custody.


If this same scenario played out at an area high school, do you think classes would resume as scheduled? Don't think so. VT security ƒü©ked up big time, if you ask me.

r:>)

[lonewolf]

Thanks for your reply Rob. It has absolutely nothing to do with my post.



I bet the press takes the low road, just mentions the play and skips right on over to the GnR connection.

[BDR]

Thanks for your reply Rob. It has absolutely nothing to do with my post.

Yeah, I guess you're right ...

r:>)

[byndrsn]

Ya know – I used to get really upset when I would here the media go on about how suicides or terrible acts (such as the VA Tech shooting) could be linked to music, television, video games, etc.

But, let me play devils advocate for a minute:

Who says that music (or TV or video games) is not directly (or indirectly) to blame? How can we as musicians make statements like: “My influence for playing the drums comes from Neil Pert” and that is all good and most musicians would be very cool with it. But on the other hand, we can’t accept that well written (although maybe violent or disturbing) lyrics couldn’t influence someone to do something negative. I’m not so sure.

Let’s face it – I doubt that most of us would fall victim to this sort of thing, but you have to admit that there are a lot of very unbalanced people walking around on this planet. For whatever reason many of them may be on the brink of completely losing it and all it may take is one song or one suggestion from something they’ve seen on TV or whatever – and SNAP!!

There are a lot of people out there with weak minds that will buy into whatever they read or hear. Who knows.

Personally I don’t completely believe that music, television or video games could ever be the only cause, but I have to believe that these mediums influence all of us to a certain extent (and I’m sure some more than others). Hell, I know that there are songs I hear that bring back memories (both bad and good), ones that make me smile (for both good and bad reasons) and ones that bring a tear to my eyes. There is music that even gets me really pissed off: If I listen to Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” (or Barney the purple dino) I get very agitated – even angry (Vivaldi is classical music btw).

Anyway, music does weird things to people. Just watch drunk white men try to dance and you have to believe it is true.

[BDR]

I bet the press takes the low road, just mentions the play and skips right on over to the GnR connection.

I was home from work yesterday and watched coverage throughout and I gotta say, I heard numerous references to this guy's writings but not once did I hear Guns N Roses brought into the discussion, so maybe, just maybe, "The Media" (is that anything like, "The Wal-Mart?) is taking the high road (or maybe I'm watching the wrong channel).

r:>)

[Jim Price]

Michael Savage was ranting and raving last night that prozac made him do it. He also reported that the shooter had scrawled the words "Ismail Ax" on his arm, which may be a reference to the Islamic account of the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham.

There is also a link on Savage's website to the script to the play that Cho Seung-Hui wrote that alarmed his professors. It is pretty bizarre stuff; here is the link:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... l?link=eaf

The talking heads will be speculating forever about what set the guy off. Ultimately, nobody will ever truly know.

[ToonaRockGuy]

I have to agree with the points that BDR made earlier in the thread. The media is always looking for a scapegoat, whether it's GNR in th VT shootings, Marilyn Manson at Columbine, or GTA: San Andreas in another incident.

Parents need to beat their kids.

Period.

It's really not that hard: if a video game is rated NC-17, don't fucking buy it for your kids. Don't allow them to play it, either in your home or in their friends' home.

If you don't want your kid listening to a certain kind of music, don't fucking buy it for them. Ask them what's on their MP3 playlist on their computers and their I-Pods.

Communicate with your kids. Pay attention to what they are doing, and how they are doing it. Parents don't crack down on their kids anymore, and the direct result is kids doing what they want, where they want, how they want, whenever they want. And that is a HUGE problem.

Pay attention to your kids.

[Possessed]

Brutal music kept me from doing bad stuff. I took my frustrations out by playing heavy music. I see it as a way to channel my negative energy to a positive outcome. If it wasn't for heavy music I most likely would have played the blues or something like that anyway. Mainly because I'm not a psycho. I'm just a little crazy but harmless.
If a person is fucked up, they were fucked long before music had any influence. If that person took negative lyrics to heart they were in the wrong place mentally to begin with.
I never ever decided to do anything negative because of music.
Of all the mistakes I made in life it was because of peer pressure or my own stupid ideas. Not because of music.
BTW King's X, Rush and Triumph were,(and still are) a great way to get frustrations out by listening to heavy or rockin music with a positive message. I always felt positive after listening to those kinds of bands.

[BDR]

Just read "Mr. Brownstone" and I must say, for an English major, this kid "din't rite to good."

They should've kicked him outta school just for being a dumbass.

r:>)

[f.sciarrillo]

I have a sinking suspicion that he didn't speak English, or understand English, very well.

[SpellboundByMetal]

well...he was Korean...so.......probably not.

[bassist_25]

With all due respect, we can all sit here and be armchair Freud's (or in this case, I guess armchair Horneys) and say that it was this one influential variable such as Guns n' Roses or lack parental discipline which drove this man to kill, but the fact of the matter is it's not so simple. It's an interaction of many different variables, but unfortunatley, a correct diagnosis doesn't make a good sound byte. Am I saying that lack of parental discipline doesn't affect one as an adult? No, most kids I grew up with no parental supervision grew up to be losers. Am I saying that games, music, television, etc. don't influence behavior? No, Albert Bandura found a lot of supporting evidence that people do follow the behavior of aggresive models. What I'm saying is that if you think it's going to be such a simple solution, then your dead wrong. Yes, even the [sarcasm] Brilliant Michael Savage who obviously has done extensive research on the effects of Prozac and has a doctorate degree in psychopharmocology - the same how Rush Limbaugh is a professional chemist so that makes him an expert on global warming to conform to his own bias - [/sarcasm] can be wrong about a thing or two.

[metalchurch]

And Mr. Browntone was about scoring heroin. I dont see the relation. Maybe he needed a better translator.
Kids do need beat. I remember when that discipline method was in style when i was growing up. Ouch!

[DirtySanchez]

And Mr. Browntone was about scoring heroin.

I know, now there gonna give scoring heroin a bad reputation.

[bassist_25]

And Mr. Browntone was about scoring heroin.

I know, now there gonna give scoring heroin a bad reputation.

It's a week of Sanchez quotes. Someone needs to take up the mantle of a Sanchez quote the same way I do old sKool quotes!

[songsmith]

And Mr. Browntone was about scoring heroin. I dont see the relation. Maybe he needed a better translator.

I thought the exact same thing when I saw that.

Scapegoats sell papers and get ratings. Imus was the goat last week, and lost his career because he said something a million homeys say every day. Victims get ratings, too. The women he "victimized" were considered "hardwood warriors" 2 weeks ago, tough and athletic... now they're "scarred forever" by the big mean man calling them a name by pointing out that they were tough.
In this case, they need to goat the school for not acting on warnings from a teacher, VT security for allowing the second bunch of shootings take place ostensibly because they didn't want shut the place down again after last August's shooting embarrassment, and on a nutzoid whacko with a deathwish. And Clinton. Clinton did it.
Meanwhile, the American death toll in Iraq for the last 10 days stands at 32, the same as the VT shooting, and about that many Iraqi's buy the farm every day. But "the next few months will be very important to a free Iraq" and we musn't question that. Stay the course! --->JMS

[Banned]

Just read "Mr. Brownstone" and I must say, for an English major, this kid "din't rite to good."

They should've kicked him outta school just for being a dumbass.

r:>)

Bingo! He was sent to counciling by his teacher. He was told by the campus police to stop harassing coeds 3 different times and was put in a counciling center on campus.

Why was this waste wad in school? His checks cleared.

[bassist_25]

I thought the exact same thing when I saw that.

Scapegoats sell papers and get ratings. Imus was the goat last week, and lost his career because he said something a million homeys say every day. Victims get ratings, too. The women he "victimized" were considered "hardwood warriors" 2 weeks ago, tough and athletic... now they're "scarred forever" by the big mean man calling them a name by pointing out that they were tough.
In this case, they need to goat the school for not acting on warnings from a teacher, VT security for allowing the second bunch of shootings take place ostensibly because they didn't want shut the place down again after last August's shooting embarrassment, and on a nutzoid whacko with a deathwish. And Clinton. Clinton did it.
Meanwhile, the American death toll in Iraq for the last 10 days stands at 32, the same as the VT shooting, and about that many Iraqi's buy the farm every day. But "the next few months will be very important to a free Iraq" and we musn't question that. Stay the course! --->JMS

I am bassist_25, and I approve of this diatribe.