An interlude, then another round of shootings and more lives lost: The Wisconsin Connection

[Penguin Board of Directors]

By now, it is common knowledge that much of what pushed JH over the edge lay at the University of Colorado Medical School. In my prior post, I said these variables were worth checking. I also alluded to JH being likely frustrated, enraged and disenchanted at the ignoble prospect of a first-class neuroscience UCR graduate flipping burgers in McDonald's, when less endowed wards of the politically connected got four to five job options they hardly merited. Can we honestly claim that we are doing enough to stop this cycle of morbid injustices? 

I suggested that society's focus needed to shift from obsession with punitive measures to causative dimensions of crime and criminality; otherwise, these shootings and needless killings might continue unabated. Bureaucrats are not known to solve problems proactively; mostly, they react and work the motion after-the-fact.

Adducing the inevitable existence of 'good and evil' regardless of what we do or fail to do is a lazy and beggarly approach to solving social problems. We have options. One of such options is studying to understand the root causes of crime and criminality and acting to prevent or at least mitigate their occurrence and resulting negativity.

Now, another interlude is over and one more shooting has occurred; this time in the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek neighborhood of Wisconsin. Seven lives, including the gun man's, are lost. The shooter in an earlier Arizona killing appears to have successfully negotiated life in prison instead of keeping a date with a hangman. Whichever way that turns out, his life is practically over. The question is "how has the Arizona tragedy helped to prevent the Colorado and Wisconsin shootings? When are we going to start paying attention and stopping the insanity encore? Today, it is the Sikh Temple, where next? Think about it. 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-06/wisconsin-sikh-shooting...

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sikh-temple-shooting-suspect-u-...