Should we have seen this coming?

The big question on everyone’s mind is, why? Why would someone do such a horrible thing? Why congresswoman Giffords? Why was this young man so angry? Why was this not prevented?

After watching the YouTube videos that were posted by Loughner it is clear to me that this is a very mentally unstable individual. He has a lot of hatred towards the government and how the government runs the country. In watching the mind controller video I got the sense that he felt the government was brainwashing us all and that we would all be much better off under another source of control. Another video from ABC News (A report on Loughner and the entire incident) mentioned that a couple years ago Loughner applied and was rejected by the military. And when students from his high school spoke about him they used words such as “loner”, “weird”, “didn’t fit in with anyone”, so it is obvious that the young man is no stranger to rejection. Maybe the rejection of the government put him over the edge. In addition to that information the ABC news story talked about the letter that Loughner kept from the congresswoman in his safe. The letter was from years ago and it thanked him for coming to meet with her. Although according to a friend, Loughner was very unhappy with Giffords’ reaction to his questions. Loughner confided in a friend that the congresswoman seemed confused by his questions and that she didn’t understand what he was saying at all, which made him very upset. It is clear that his peers and even the government did not accept Loughner, and that type of rejection could have possibly drove him to do a terrible act. Since Giffords and Loughner had a personal encounter he may have felt more anger towards her than others, which is why he chose her as his target.

As we discussed in class, shooters such as Loughner are remembered and in a disgusting sense become famous. Everyone now knows Loughner along with his ideas, theories and story, and maybe that is why he did it. When he gained the attention of the public so did his ideas. So even though he is now locked up his ideas are not, there is a possibility that they can be passed on to others who will seek them out. Just the idea of being understood by someone, anyone, could have given Loughner the drive to pursue his plan.

Now onto the question of, why was this act not prevented? Some say that putting Loughner in an institution could have prevented the entire incident or taking away shows such as Glenn Becks could lessen the influence, but I don’t believe that. According to an article in Time magazine Loughner did show warning signs of being mentally ill but he did not put himself or anyone else in danger (before the shooting). For that reason, the only way he could have been admitted to an institution was by admitting himself. Which would not have been possible since Loughner believed that he had the solution to a better government and everyone else had it wrong. He did not believe he was unstable but more so the rest of the country was. Networks such as Fox News that has shows similar to Glenn Becks should not be to blame for these types of incidents. Someone who is pushed over the edge to do the extreme from watching these types of shows is an unstable individual to begin with. With that being said, I do not believe Glenn Beck is responsible for these extreme events and that in this circumstance the shooting could not have been prevented.