LogFAQs > #925619775

adjl posted...

Mead posted...

Zareth posted...

Yes, keep making articles like this all about the shooter, his name, his life, pictures of him, yada yada yada.
That surely won't cause more crazies who want to be remembered to commit more mass shootings, nosireebob.

For real.

Personally, I think there's merit in referring to past and future mass shooters only by identification numbers. No faces, no names, no published body counts, no comparison to prior shootings... Just "an individual henceforth referred to as Mass Shooter #16925 committed a mass killing today. Victims' families have been notified, and the individual is expected to stand trial on August 22nd, facing a life sentence." None of this "This guy named John Doe committed the third-worst mass shooting since December!" reporting that gives them so much attention and validation.

While I don't like mass shooters getting famous for their crimes and feel that certain information should be suppressed to discourage copycats, the public kinda needs to know location, body count, motive, etc. Otherwise I agree that their identity shouldn't be publicized (their name & face don't really add anything to the conversation -- especially since most people refer to the shooter by the incident anyway) and we shouldn't be giving free publicity to their manifestos, which is exactly the kind of attention most of them want.
---

(\/)(\/)|-|