Blog 3: Violence

Violence has always been a large part of history.  There have been countless wars, genocides, and many other types of violence.  Today we even use violence as a form of entertainment.  While reading Echeverría's story "Slaughterhouse," the scene where the child is beheaded really caught my attention.  At first I couldn't believe it had actually happened, but as I kept reading my disbelief grew.  A child was beheaded amongst a large mob of people, but few stopped to recognize that a horrible tragedy had occurred. It showed me how little violence affected the people anymore because it happened so often.

That thought led to some current events going on in the U.S. today.  On January 22nd, a shooting occurred at Purdue University killing one man.  The gunman was arrested and is facing murder charges.  The police believe the shooter targeted the victim and it was an isolated attack.  My first thought when I heard of this story was "Another school shooting?"  Over the years there have been numerous school shootings and it has caused many to be desensitized to the brutality.

Just this Saturday another shooting occurred in a mall in Maryland.  The gunman went to the mall and opened fire within one of the stores killing two and wounding others before turing the gun on himself.  It was later discovered that he was carrying makeshift explosives with him at the time.

Within the last week there have been two public shootings, and unfortunately a sort of norm has begun to occur.  Just like in the story, people have become to used to the violence in our world and it doesn't affect us as strongly as it might have in the past.  To me this a very disheartening thought.  I've come to the conclusion that all "civilizations" are not completely civilized, even ours today, and that all have some barbaric characteristics.



More about the shootings:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/21/justice/purdue-shooting-report/
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/25/us/maryland-mall-shooting/

Pictures:
http://abcnews.go.com/
http://www.freep.com/