September 14, 2006 at 1:12 pm · Filed under Canada, Crime, News
The latest in school shootings happened yesterday, only a few hours away from me in downtown Montreal. This chilling incident is another reminder of just how far an individual can go when everything in their life falls apart. It has become known that the killers name is Kimveer Gill, and went by the name of “Fatality666″, mostly on the Goth/Vampire culture messageboard “VampireFreaks“. After doing some searching, I found his profile to be deleted, apparently by the VF admins. However, Google saves the day with the cached version. Make sure you are sitting down to read that. Also check out his journal here, not quite as sensational.
Also see 100’s of news articles on Google news here.
Now of course there are thousands of other web sites just like Kimveer’s, of young people expressing their malady and discontent, often exclaiming their intent to hurt themselves or others. The fact is, the vast majority of these people will never carry out these plans of violence. I think the real, obvious warning sign when it comes to Kimveer is not his scary collection of polls and quizzes and expressions of depression and violence, but the combination of that, and the photographic evidence that he had acquired real weapons.
The minute someone close to Kimveer, or any of the users of his forum put these two things together, some kind of authority should have been notified. The problem exists in whether or not people can make that huge leap to believing that their friends or family are capable of committing the acts they often speak of. Kimveer Gill not only spoke openly of killing himself and others, of dying “in a hail of gunfire”, but he also purchased deadly weapons. However, could his closest friend have predicted or prevented this event? Probably not. The close friends of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris knew parts of the plans for the Columbine massacre, yet probably never imagined they would actually go through with it.
So the question is, how can we possibly prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again? It is a massively complicated social issue, and one that obviously isn’t going to be solved on this blog… but it is definitely something to think about. I think the first step is to definitely be aware if you see someone escalating their antisocial behaviour, like Kimveer did. He began as a lonely person looking for a group to join, and ended up in a rampage, with guns and death threats all over his web site.
My condolences to all involved.
August 28, 2006 at 1:08 am · Filed under USA, War, World Issues, Canada
This article contains some very graphic, shocking commentaries by 4 U.S. Army deserters now living in Toronto, exiles from their country. A few excerpts:
Anderson shakes his head at the memory. “I’m already not agreeing with this war. I’m not going to kill innocent people. I can’t kill kids. That’s not the way I was raised.” He says he started to look around at the ruined cityscape and the injured Iraqis, and slowly began to understand the Iraqi response. “If someone did this to my street, I would pick up a weapon and fight. I can’t kill these people. They’re not terrorists. They’re 14-year-old boys, they’re old men. We’re occupying the streets. We raid houses. We grab people. We send them off to Abu Ghraib, where they’re tortured. These are innocent people. We stop cars. We hinder everyday life. If I did this in the States, I’d be thrown in prison.”
In addition to the abuse of prisoners, the regularity with which civilians were killed at checkpoints confounded the young marine. “My friends have been ones who’ve done that, and after the event it’s always, ‘Oh, so and so is a little down today – he killed a guy in front of his kids.’ Or, ‘He killed a couple of kids.’ These marines that had to do that were my friends, who I talked to every day. It’s hard knowing that your best friend had to kill innocent people.”
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August 21, 2006 at 7:21 am · Filed under USA, Shenanigans, World Issues, Canada
Richard over at Renaissance Man posted this the other day, got a good laugh from it:
From this thread about U.S./Canada relations on the zefrank forums:
On why the US & Canada aren’t the best of friends anymore…
Canada and the US used to be great friends. We got into all sorts of trouble together growing up, chasing girls, crushing fascism, drinking beers, redefining socioeconomic norms for the entire world. Then one day the US suggests we go rob a liquor store. Canada bailed and reconnected with its old friends in Europe who were busy raising families.
Interesting and funny on many levels.
August 16, 2006 at 8:29 pm · Filed under Canada, Online Tools, Jesse
There is a town, in South Ontario
with dream comfort memory to spare
and in my mind, I still need a place to go
all my changes were there…
August 13, 2006 at 5:31 pm · Filed under World Issues, Canada
The son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau speaks out on the friendship and soulful kinship his father and the Cuban dictator shared.
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