2007-11-07

Jokela school shooting

Eight people dead. It's all over the news, so you don't need me for the basics.

If you want to read the shooter's attempt to justify himself, his writings are available for download here (available in both stilted Finnish and bad English). The documents aren't very illuminating, in that the guy's actions aren't at all logically connected to his violent theories. E.g. he praises himself for his free will and deep understanding of how society works - a superior being in a sea of mediocrity - and then shoots himself in the head.

The shooter, apparently named Pekka-Eric Auvinen, had shooting as a hobby and owned a licensed handgun. He read Nietzsche. He watched violent movies. Whatever your grand unified theory of school shootings is, there's enough material here to support it. I guess that can wait, though.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to Auvinen's writings.

The annotation hidden in "document properties" (File menu) of the document entitled Hate & Love.doc is more illuminating than the body text. It reads:

Hate, Im so full of it and I love it

Ben Meirs