Justin Kanew calls for a new plan of action when it comes to homicidal killers: not giving them fame.
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Much has been said about the 22-year-old UCSB gunman in the wake of his evil deed. He’s not the first, and he won’t be the last.
When these horrible things happen, the same cycle takes hold: shock, grief, blame. Lather, rinse, repeat. On some level it seems we’ve already moved on from this one. Chalk it up on the scoreboard. See you next time.
Nothing seems to change. Some state and local legislation, maybe, but nothing has been done where it counts, despite 90% of the country — nine out of 10! — wanting reasonable gun sense laws such as federally mandated background checks. It’s seemingly the very least we can do to start to change our gun-crazy identity and attempt to avert the next catastrophe, the VERY least we can do to show the parents of The Lost their voices are being heard.
But no.
Because, in the words of one UCSB victim’s father, Richard Martinez, our ‘rudderless’ politicians are so deep in the pockets of the deep-pocketed NRA, we can’t even get the tiniest bit of obviously sensible legislation pushed through. The NRA is so focused on its own purse, that federal gun ownership regulations are a non-starter. They won’t even allow research to be funded… Research! To them, science and knowledge is the enemy (as is the case with most subjects), so once again Team Guns throws out the same tired my-2nd-Amendment-over-your-dead-kids excuses about why guns aren’t to blame, without making any suggestions about what we can do to change the fact that our gun death numbers are so incredibly outsized.
They offer no alternatives. They never do. And they’re winning. Every time this happens and we move on without a change, they’re winning.
So let’s assume for a second that any gun regulation is a dead-end, that even the most emotional pleas from parents like Richard Martinez will just fade away. Is there anything else we can do to stop the next mass killer? Any legislation even the NRA would have no cause to block?
It seems there’s at least one thing worth trying — something that would ask nothing of the NRA, something that goes to the heart of the WHY, WHY these (mostly white, male) mass murderers do what they do.
In a word: FAME.
The UCSB killer (I’m purposely omitting his name) wanted to be a ‘God’ … The fake bomber in Boston this year wanted to ‘get my name out there’…
To some degree, all of these mass murderers snap because they’re tired of being ignored. Fame, on a grand level, is what they seek.
And it’s what they get.
If word got out among the evil that shooting up a theater, school or campus would not promise you a moment in the limelight, that could very well give them enough pause to decide the upside doesn’t outweigh the downside.
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When these things happen, everyone knows their names. And their faces. And their interests. And their backgrounds. And what movies they liked. And what games they played. They become Bieber-level celebrities, even if it’s for the wrong reasons … ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ is never truer than it is for them.
Somewhere out there, the next UCSB killer is watching the endless coverage of what happened in Isla Vista and thinking ‘A glorious death is better than a lifetime of obscurity,’ or ‘It’s better to have shined bright than not at all,’ or something along those lines. And he’ll work up the courage to do what this monster did, and he’ll do it, and we’ll stamp his name in the history books right next to all the others.
Shock, grief, blame. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But what if we didn’t? What if we could resist the urge to grab ratings, clicks, or views by discussing these monsters endlessly, poring over every detail … what if we decide as a society that these names and faces will not be published for the world to see?
They all have a digital footprint. They all have a doctrine. They all want to be heard. What if we shut our ears?
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When I was growing up one of my favorite parts of a baseball game was when idiots would run on the field and get tackled by security. It used to happen all the time. Then one day the networks decided to stop showing their faces — they would cut away to the stands until the incident was over.
Sure enough, it stopped happening as much. It seems that principle could very well apply to mass shootings. If word got out among the evil that shooting up a theater, school or campus would not promise you a moment in the limelight, that could very well give them enough pause to decide the upside doesn’t outweigh the downside.
So why not try it? If it could potentially stop even one Sandy Hook-Aurora-Columbine-Isla Vista, would it not be well worth it?
The media wouldn’t make this decision on its own. They’re hooked on ratings like crackheads. It would require government action. But it wouldn’t do any harm to the NRA’s bottom line, so they would have no cause to lobby against it. Instead the onus would be on the media to make a sacrifice. Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d like to believe they’d be somewhat more reasonable in the face of public, and congressional, pressure.
Call it the Stop Making Murderers Famous Act. Or the Richard Martinez Act.
Why not try?
About Justin Kanew
Justin Kanew is a two-time “Amazing Race” not-winner and film producer in Los Angeles. He produced Jean Claude Van Damme’s first comedy “Welcome to the Jungle.” He also hosts “Let’s Get Digital!” every Wednesday night at 6 PST on TradioV.com. Tweet him @Justin_Kanew.
This article originally appeared on HyperVocal.
Photo credit: AP