The potential to become a murderer develops at home and history has proved it.
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, could have been prevented.
A mother’s (said to have once been a teacher) fascination for guns is extraordinary but extraordinary and cautious is how the education of her children at home should have been. The perpetrator of the killings, her 20-year-old son Adam, is alleged to have been mentally challenged. If true, it would have been known to her and she should have hence exercised greater caution rather than dangerously exposing him to her collection and interest in firearms.
Debate on the enactment and enforcement of a strict law for gun control in the U.S. is another but related matter of utmost importance. The ease of buying weapons and their resultant proliferation among the civilian population has been a large contributor to gun-related violence in the country. What is even more worrying is access to weapons by those who are mentally challenged or of unsound mind. Care for mentally challenged people in a developed country like the U.S. is far ahead compared to India. Yet, how many times do we hear of a mentally challenged person here committing mass murder? On the contrary there are numerous such people who roam the streets, naked and hungry. To see a weapon in their hands is a fantasy.
It is not just the kind of parenting but our lack of proactive counselling to someone for his or her failure, or the quality of counselling itself, which determines the constructive or destructive direction a person takes in life. I once heard that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse had aspired to join the Indian Air Force and in the process of doing so at the Air Force Selection Board in Dehradun, failed for medical reasons. Would effective counselling to overcome the negative feelings and thoughts arising from failure have helped Godse succeed in more constructive ways in another career?
History is replete with examples of mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin in whose formative years the seeds to commit murder were sown. Hitler’s genocidal mind may have also been triggered by his failure to join the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler and Stalin both came from dysfunctional families. Their fathers were cruel towards them. It is obvious that their mothers, though attached to them and vice-versa, failed to constructively influence their minds. The esoteric causes for the dictators’ bloodied future entails another study all-together.
Notable people like Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, who rose meaningfully from a challenging childhood, are rare. His poor and widowed mother is said to have struggled doing odd jobs to pay for his education. He eventually became a noted scientist and the Director General of India’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
At the time of writing, it is still uncertain about what drove the gunman to kill his mother at home and 26 others at the school. Reports say that he was fond of violent video games and was disturbed by his parents divorce. Well, many children go through the upheaval of divorce of parents and may like video games based on violence. But in the case of Adam, there were other accumulated factors that made him into a tinder box which ignited. We may never know what finally triggered the fuse, but that his parents could have played a more effective role in preventing the formation of the tinder box is certain.
Quality of parenting is crucial and plays a big role in enabling a child with signs of saintliness to become a saint or a child showing signs of violence or a mental illness to become a criminal.
Monsters do not come out of earth or sky to commit their monstrosities. They are made somewhere amidst our lives. And the reality is that in most cases the beginnings of the potential to commit murder starts at home.
The killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, could have been prevented.
A mother’s (said to have once been a teacher) fascination for guns is extraordinary but extraordinary and cautious is how the education of her children at home should have been. The perpetrator of the killings, her 20-year-old son Adam, is alleged to have been mentally challenged. If true, it would have been known to her and she should have hence exercised greater caution rather than dangerously exposing him to her collection and interest in firearms.
Debate on the enactment and enforcement of a strict law for gun control in the U.S. is another but related matter of utmost importance. The ease of buying weapons and their resultant proliferation among the civilian population has been a large contributor to gun-related violence in the country. What is even more worrying is access to weapons by those who are mentally challenged or of unsound mind. Care for mentally challenged people in a developed country like the U.S. is far ahead compared to India. Yet, how many times do we hear of a mentally challenged person here committing mass murder? On the contrary there are numerous such people who roam the streets, naked and hungry. To see a weapon in their hands is a fantasy.
It is not just the kind of parenting but our lack of proactive counselling to someone for his or her failure, or the quality of counselling itself, which determines the constructive or destructive direction a person takes in life. I once heard that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse had aspired to join the Indian Air Force and in the process of doing so at the Air Force Selection Board in Dehradun, failed for medical reasons. Would effective counselling to overcome the negative feelings and thoughts arising from failure have helped Godse succeed in more constructive ways in another career?
History is replete with examples of mass murderers like Hitler and Stalin in whose formative years the seeds to commit murder were sown. Hitler’s genocidal mind may have also been triggered by his failure to join the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Hitler and Stalin both came from dysfunctional families. Their fathers were cruel towards them. It is obvious that their mothers, though attached to them and vice-versa, failed to constructively influence their minds. The esoteric causes for the dictators’ bloodied future entails another study all-together.
Notable people like Dr. R. A. Mashelkar, who rose meaningfully from a challenging childhood, are rare. His poor and widowed mother is said to have struggled doing odd jobs to pay for his education. He eventually became a noted scientist and the Director General of India’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
At the time of writing, it is still uncertain about what drove the gunman to kill his mother at home and 26 others at the school. Reports say that he was fond of violent video games and was disturbed by his parents divorce. Well, many children go through the upheaval of divorce of parents and may like video games based on violence. But in the case of Adam, there were other accumulated factors that made him into a tinder box which ignited. We may never know what finally triggered the fuse, but that his parents could have played a more effective role in preventing the formation of the tinder box is certain.
Quality of parenting is crucial and plays a big role in enabling a child with signs of saintliness to become a saint or a child showing signs of violence or a mental illness to become a criminal.
Monsters do not come out of earth or sky to commit their monstrosities. They are made somewhere amidst our lives. And the reality is that in most cases the beginnings of the potential to commit murder starts at home.
Copyright © Tarun Dalaya
1 comment:
Sir, it is an worthy analysing writing. Valuable
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