Mass Murderers and Women Response

In response to the link posted in Marin's blog, here's what I have to offer in terms of the content of the article as well as how it was crafted.

First, as to the content of the article... it is no secret that individuals who are abusive towards animals, children or women tend to have proclivities towards greater psychopathy and committing larger scale atrocities. That's a link that seems to have been concretely proven.

However, where in other press has it been said that the Virginia Tech authorities decided that this was a localized hate killing against a former girlfriend, leading them to not lock down the rest of their facilities? There's such a plethora of knee-jerk regulations on campuses regarding lock downs in the presence of violence or threatened violence that I find that stunningly difficult to believe. Seems much more likely and plausible to me that they had a distinct lack of information and miscommunication. I haven't seen this link in any of the other press that I've been reading on the incident; however, I may just not be tracking the situation well enough. This is a lot more complex than people seem to realize. Lots of variables and factors to consider here.

Also, by assuming that the lack of attention paid to violence against women is one of the only causative factors in tragedies like this, you commit a grave fallacy: you don't leave room for the possibility that this travesty may have occurred even in a climate where domestic violence was a pre-eminent issue that was given a great deal of attention and focus. Not every man who leers at women and takes pictures of them and harasses them walks into a place of business or a college campus, subsequently blowing away dozens of innocent people. It doesn't excuse that behavior or attempt to normalize it in any way. But it doesn't mean there's a direct causative factor there. A link is far different from a causative factor. Heart attacks are linked to HIV infections. Doesn't mean the HIV virus itself is a causative factor of said heart attack.

This article leapfrogs in a way that confuses me. It goes from implications of violence against women as being a causative factor in the VT massacre to general statements regarding violence against women in the United States to an abrupt shift towards gun control discussion which is very poorly presented and in places even contradictory. It clearly states that kids cannot have assault weapons in one bullet point and then directly states that they CAN purchase assault weapons in the next bullet point. Let's see some references and clearer bullet points that actually quote the law instead of saying "can't give kids this, kids can buy this..."

It really seems to me like this author is using the argument "you can't prove that this didn't cause this so it must have caused it". You can't prove that violence against women did NOT cause the massacre, so it must have been the causative factor. You can't prove that the gun laws didn't open up the way for the massacre to occur, so they must have been at fault. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this called a logical fallacy?

I don't like the way the article is structured. There's no transitions. There's way too much casual language and assumptions tossed around to produce the clip it all together here's what's wrong with this statement at the end. This is a much more complex issue than anyone realizes. It's about a failure at the level of mental health monitoring; why weren't his records flagged and why wasn't he under watch by campus mental health services? Why didn't the background check that I'm fairly sure is universal in most gun purchases turn up a red flag? Why wasn't his behavior addressed before?

This article only briefly mentions the fact that Cho Seung-Hui was determined to be a threat to himself and others and then says "this presented no obstacle to purchasing weapons"... but WHY didn't it present an obstacle? Is it a direct fault of gun legislation that does not prevent those with mental illness acquiring weaponry? Is it a failure to apply said legislation? What kind of implications did his mental illness have in committing this atrocity?

If Emily Hilscher wasn't even Cho's girlfriend and it WASN'T a crime motivated by violence against a former domestic partner, how does this become a violence against women issue? How did we leapfrog from "she wasn't his girlfriend" to assuming it's a women's violence issue? Where's the source for the authorities "dismissing" someone blowing people away in a dormitory as not a particular cause for worry because of an assumed limited scope? No school official in their right mind would take that stance. How did this author get this?

This leaves me with a lot of questions and fairly pissed off to boot. It seems like yet another person jumping on the bandwagon of "oh my god look this is MY issue here, pay attention to ME" with gun control and women's violence. It needs to be better structured with better supports and references for me to be able to take it seriously. I'm sure there are valid points raised here... but the bias drowns the validity and muddies it to the point where I found the article to be almost unintelligible at points.