The Dawson College Shooting

[felis_ultharus]

Gah. Montreal had its third post-secondary school shooting last night. A man named Kimveer Gill walked into Dawson College (less than ten blocks from my school, in a neighbourhood I used to work), and opened fire apparently at random before police shot him. One person died, and at least 19 are in hospital.

I didn't go to Dawson, but probably half my friends in this city did. Here's hoping their friends are okay.

The media aftermath is worse than usual. Most news sources are making much of the fact that he's a Goth. I never met a violent Goth during my Goth days, but the media seems eager to believe they're capable of anything.

Even more disgusting are the papers blaring his ethnicity in their headlines, as if his Sri Lankan background had anything to do with the killing. La Presse's online edition was doing this last night, but that story seems to have been replaced now.

Judging from the bits of his blog that have surfaced, he sounds paranoid, convinced the police were watching him. I'm guessing this is another case of a dangerously insane individual with a weapon and no link to reality.

The real question in my mind is, "How does a clearly unstable personality who said he would 'come to be known as the Angel of Death' get hold Beretta Cx4 Storm pistol-caliber semi-automatic carbine in a country with strict gun control laws?" Who puts a weapon like that into someone's hands?

Comments

[maidenofirisa.livejournal.com]

Most of the people seem to focus so much on his appearance. Why he did it and why it was even possible for him to it are so much more important.

The way this has been covered seems to show that all goths or punks are dangerous. I heard people saying that both groups of people were dangerous. Most goths I know would never harm anyone.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

They're fopcusing on the things people find different or strange. Most mass-murderers are quite clean-cut, and present themselves to the world as respectable people.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

I looked at today's La Presse (they get it in the office) and I was appalled by how much focus they put on the fact that he wore dark clothing as if that explains everything. There's this close up of his boots which just struck me as ridiculous. If everyone who wore boots like that were trouble, we better watch out for Sammy. ;) I'd laugh at how ridiculous it is but it isn't funny. The media seems to like easy answers like "goth", "video games" or what not.

He was a sick, twisted person but all this stereotyping doesn't help the problem. What we really need to do is how to keep people like him from getting weapons to do these sorts of things.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the media attention on his appearance is intended as a distraction from the reality of gun violence. On the canpolitik community, the gun nuts didn't even wait for the bodies to grow cold before they started defending the right to bear arm.

Given how right-wing the Canadian media is now, there are probably more than a few gun-nuts sitting behind editorial desks :/

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

on an unrelated note...

Like The Collected Works of Billy the Kid? Come see it in stage version by SaBooge Theatre, at the Centaur, in the first week of October! (I can get us in for free... shhh...)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I can't say I'm actually a fan -- actually I found Ondaatje's poems so tedious I could barely finish them.

I'm working on a theory that this poem is actually a giant satire of Margaret Atwood's The Journal of Susanna Moodie. They were published the same year, but Billy the Kid seems to have come out later.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that Ondaatje's whole literary career is a giant, cerebral, money-making practical joke that no one gets because they're taking him way too seriously. If you look too closely at his work, most of it looks like parody.

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

Well then, I'm, uh, sorry I asked.

:)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

:p

I'm sorry. I get ridiculously passionate about some things.

I think it could definitely improve on stage. Indeed, that might redeem the whole project.

[melting-penguin.livejournal.com]

What I find unreal is the all of the guns were perfectly legal and registered. Why is a semi-automatic legal? Did you hear about what his mother had to say about him?

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

All I heard was that she didn't notice anything except he seemed to be getting more unhappy leading up to the shooting. She thought the gun thing was just a hobby.

And I agree -- it shouldn't be legal. The reason guns are legal to civilians in this country is because in many places, hunting is part of the local cultural traditions.

Fine, but no one needs a semi-automatic to hunt deer. That's a weapon for hunting humans only, and it should not be allowed into this country.