America needs a "Damnatio Memoriae" for spree shooters

This week started with the tragic and senseless shooting of more than thirty students at Virginia Tech by a deranged and selfish student himself. Let me preface by saying the other day Dennis Miller opined a most useful and wise outlook -- to `give a pass for the first 48 hours' to any emotional outbursts or frustrated rage at a senseless mass killing, whether a Virginia Tech or 9/11. I think that is most sagacious of Dennis Miller, and have taken it to heart. I put my own hasty comment of that day as it was still happening in that category. Senseless things often trigger frustrated wish to see them speedily corrected. What follows though is not an emotional complaint, but a reasoned proposal. For, in the Virginia Tech shooting the aftermath saw something senseless as well, if not at all in the same magnitude.

Namely, the hasty and almost salivating airing of the culprit's video-taped statement/confession and rantings that he took the time to send to NBC in between two phases of killings. This was a classic case of a killer, a culprit and cretin, seeking to use the media to create and promote some kind of posthumous legacy for himself. There was nothing for `society at large' to learn from such rantings, or `should understand'. It was notoriety-seeking pure and simple, and so shameless as to mail it to NBC. Even worse, the network `fell for it' - much to their subsequent and deserved censure by relatives of victims and the public alike. This kind of `giving a platform' should not be tolerated for the emotion can find echo in others that might not otherwise respond to an abstract event; and in fact, the culprit's "statement" brought up the Columbine high school shootings as a role model. This incident underlines an acute lack we have in our system today -- a way of punishing or otherwise censuring spree-shooting culprits posthumously. Though it can hardly classify as a "deterrent" since the perpetrator is dead in each case, something to discourage or blunt so-called "copycat" crimes is needed. Indeed, there have been reports of such `copycat' threats, fortunately quelled, this past week.

The proposal: spree killers who commit suicide or are slain at the scene should not be named much, but in all subsequent references given a number or similar dismissive reference comprising the date of the crime and demise. No "statements" or "manifestos" should be run, aired, or otherwise disseminated. They should remain in archives, publicly accessible for those who really want to go to the trouble to research it, but not "blasted nationally" across the airwaves. This should carry fines if violated, and could be a bona-fide `after-suicide' punishment. It would also create a certain banality and abstract nature to the crime, give it less notoriety, allowing it to be quickly forgotten and consigned to the mists of the past. This is one way to partly deter repetition, by taking any perceived `reward' or `glamor' out of it. It would not take away any lessons for authorities to learn, but would remove its aura. A footnote burial of the deed, as it were.

We have seen what many have suspected for some time, and that is that certain spree-shootings are inspired as much by precedent as any secondary causes like video-games, bullying, etc. Since they usually shoot themselves, its necessary to find a way to rebuke and otherwise abolish any legacy resulting. In Egyptian and Roman times, there was a process called "Damnatio Memoriae" by which one's name could be effaced and mention separated from any deeds. We need something like that for those who evade justice by taking their life after selfishly killing others, rather than simply killing themselves, which would be unfortunate but unselfish and honest.

- Antony