Amish Aftermath: This Goes Beyond Sick
I didn't comment on this today because I wanted to see how the news handled this. It was done tastefully (though a couple talking heads were already sending up smoke signals about how "it's time to take the guns"), and I saw little in the way of sensationalism. In addition, it seems as though the Amish community is not one to talk to the media; a habit others may consider trying to emulate to take away this phony power the media seems to wield from time to time. But I can honestly say I never thought I'd hear these words all in the same sentence: Amish school shooting.
A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. ...
... The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
"Why?" is a question that's not likely to have too many answers. Nothing left behind by him, including a wife and three kids, seems to hold the key, and right now there is only gobs of speculation. And like other school shooters, this coward took his own life. This is a tragedy that is likely to have some repercussions within the Amish community interms of the psychological scarring of the residents and the other children who witnessed this grotesque crime.
And unfortunately for the Amish, they just happened to be caught in the middle. Everything points to this being a literal random choice. The man supposedly held no malice for the Amish community. I can't see why he would have any hatred towards a group of people who have chosen a simpler life with as little violence as possible. It's there way, and sadly, it was shattered yesterday. A very sad day, to be sure.
Sabrina McKinney
I didn't comment on this today because I wanted to see how the news handled this. It was done tastefully (though a couple talking heads were already sending up smoke signals about how "it's time to take the guns"), and I saw little in the way of sensationalism. In addition, it seems as though the Amish community is not one to talk to the media; a habit others may consider trying to emulate to take away this phony power the media seems to wield from time to time. But I can honestly say I never thought I'd hear these words all in the same sentence: Amish school shooting.
A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.
At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.
It was the nation's third deadly school shooting in less than a week, and it sent shock waves through Lancaster County's bucolic Amish country, a picturesque landscape of horse-drawn buggies, green pastures and neat-as-a-pin farms, where violent crime is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the victims had been shot execution-style at point-blank range after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said. Two young students were killed, along with a female teacher's aide who was slightly older than the students, state police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said. ...
... The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, a 32-year-old truck driver from the nearby town of Bart, was bent on killing young girls as a way of "acting out in revenge for something that happened 20 years ago" when he was a boy, Miller said.
Miller refused to say what that long-ago hurt was.
Roberts was not Amish and appeared to have nothing against the Amish community, Miller said. Instead, Miller said, he apparently picked the school because it was close by, there were girls there, and it had little or no security.
The attack bore similarities to a deadly school shooting last week in Bailey, Colo., and authorities there raised the possibility that the Pennsylvania attack was a copycat crime.
"Why?" is a question that's not likely to have too many answers. Nothing left behind by him, including a wife and three kids, seems to hold the key, and right now there is only gobs of speculation. And like other school shooters, this coward took his own life. This is a tragedy that is likely to have some repercussions within the Amish community interms of the psychological scarring of the residents and the other children who witnessed this grotesque crime.
And unfortunately for the Amish, they just happened to be caught in the middle. Everything points to this being a literal random choice. The man supposedly held no malice for the Amish community. I can't see why he would have any hatred towards a group of people who have chosen a simpler life with as little violence as possible. It's there way, and sadly, it was shattered yesterday. A very sad day, to be sure.
Sabrina McKinney
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 1:30 AM
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