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Gamers Grapple With VA Tech Shooting
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 20, 2007 02:44 PM
from the tough-week-for-everybody dept.
from the tough-week-for-everybody dept.
I imagine it's been a hard week for a lot of people; gamers in particular have been jumping to defend their hobby from the likes of Dr. Phil and Jack Thompson, both of whom were quick to link gaming and the tragedy in Virginia. Despite their vigor, it seems like game enthusiasts can breathe easily this week. As far as most people can tell, gaming was in no way involved. Even the mainstream media is coming to realize that gaming isn't always the right place to turn when youth violence grabs the headlines. Just the same, some activist gamers are still trying to make sure their hobby comes out of this unscathed, and at least some folks think they may be overdoing things: "While I'm all for activism for one's beliefs, I really think this may do more harm then good. As gamers, we feel a need to defend our passion, but we run the risk of ending up looking no better than those seeking to shift blame, while further disrupting the already-mourning. I say that the thing to focus on at this point is simply remembering those lost and cherishing what we still have. Now's not the time for political vendettas, and gamers need to step down and just humbly accept the fact that blame will always be shifted to the popular youth activities: be it a KISS concert, a video game, or something else."
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Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But he did inspire at least one copycat [art.com].
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could mod you up. People are so intent on dragging in anything they do not like and citing it as a possible cause, it makes my head hurt. Even Eric Harris, who was a big fan of FPS games (designed maps, ran a website) clearly stated that they had nothing to do with his motives. In this latest case, drawing any kind of parallel with games is just evil. These people will use anything that is sensational and bullshit as much as they can to advance their private agenda.
I am sure that the gun control party will have their heyday with this case. They won't care that shooters like Harris and Cho prepare for months and have no scruples with breaking the law. I am not arguing pro or con here (I am still unsure myself), but it is clear to me that
(1) even making all guns illegal will not stop a determined shooter from acquiring them, and, otoh,
(2) making guns legal for everyone will not reduce casualties, because shooters always get to choose time, place, and "audience".
Parent
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe in the right to bear arms, but pistols make me nervous, and hell, they're not much use in most cases. Home invasion? 12 gauge semi-auto loaded with buckshot...Only get 5 shots, but the last three will only be making tiny pieces out of little pieces. Guerrilla war against a repressive government? Automatic rifles.
Pistols? I can't think of a single situation where I wouldn't rather have a bigger, more accurate gun. The only thing they're good for is carrying concealed, and I don't believe in carrying concealed. If you're armed, it should be right out there in the open, none of this sneaky ass concealed crap...What possible rationale is there for carrying concealed? The point is to deter crime, right? Isn't that always the argument? You're not deterring crap if it's concealed. Come up with a better deterrent than walking down the street with a shotgun over one shoulder...You'll have the whole damn sidewalk to yourself.
I've known a lot of pistol carriers in my life, and just about every damn one of 'em pissed me off. Every dumbass with kids who keeps a loaded pistol under the seat of his car, or in his damn desk...If I ever hear the phrase "the safety's on" (after they've pointed it at me) one more time, I'm killing the dumbass who says it.
You know whats sad? Introspecting here. I don't think guns should be controlled because I want to keep them away from criminals...It'd be nice, but it won't happen. What I want to do is keep 'em away from goddamn tubby suburbanites who think they need that gun. What a world.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Mod parent up! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I ever hear the phrase "the safety's on" (after they've pointed it at me) one more time, I'm killing the dumbass who says it.
There has to be a mechanism for getting those idiots' firearms licence revoked - and if there isn't then there should be. Anyone that stupid and irresponsible should not be trusted with a knife and fork, let alone a gun.
Parent
Re:Mod parent up! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was raised around guns. I respect them, and I've never had an accident with a gun, and it's because I treat them like what they are...deadly weapons. I don't show 'em to people with the barrel parallel to the floor and a goddamn round in the CHAMBER. I've seen this crap over and over.
People always talk about Switzerland, and how they have more guns per capita than we do, and far less gun problems per capita. They also have mandatory military service, which forces people to learn how to use a gun intelligently.
There is no barrier to ownership here, and I'm fine with that in theory, but in practice it means a lot of people who have no business owning a gun, end up owning a gun. So compromise. Anyone can get a long gun, but you have to pass some serious tests for a pistol. We uphold the spirit of the Constitution, and maintain a little civil order as well.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it will. Depend on it.
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
ROFL (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, what situation are you talking about here? Is someone trying to assassinate you? I'm trying to think of a situation which would include me gunning for an armed bystander, and it's not coming to me. Either I'm carrying a longer gun as well, in which case it's obvious I'm also armed, so no advantage for a pistol, or I'm point blank on the guy, which would probably have alerted him somewhat if he's living somewhere so dangerous he has to carry a gun everywhere. I'm sure as hell not going to try and shoot him from any kind of range with a fricking pistol! That works in cowboy movies, but in the real world you're going to have to be close to kill someone with a pistol with anything other than a lucky shot.
If someone is willing to take on a whole group of unarmed people, he probably doesn't give a damn if any of them are armed, any more than a rabid dog would. He's screwed up in the head, screwed up people do screwed up things. And even here, in gun-friendly America, we all know damn well that no one in that crowd is carrying a gun (well, unless we're in Texas, NYC, or LA), and a criminal will attack with that knowledge. But not if they see a gun.
Parent
Re:Jesus is to blame! (Score:5, Informative)
It's also not the first time some whackjob serial killer has said he either was Jesus or was some kind of prophet. Take Jonestown founder Jim Jones, Branch Davidian David Koresh, or remorseless murderer Charles Manson.
Parent
Starcraft (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Photoshoppers had him pegged [imageshack.us], probably while he was in ther classrums, killin ther d00dz.
Frankly, I'm all for it.
The less the world sees of him as some terrifying icon of doom, brandishing his weapons on MSNBC while TV narrators breathlessly pore over every word of his screenplay and manifesto... and the more it sees of him as "ch0wn3d", or "Stop! Hammertime!", the better.
Re:Starcraft (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What? The safety's on.
Breaking News (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
STAY AWAY FROM THE PICKLE!
What about... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, gamers aren't "grappling" with anything. It's the idiots on TV who can't seem to get ratings from speaking intelligent, well-thought, insightful words and have to resort to fear-mongering and dumbassery (TM). Nothing for anyone to see here, please move along.
Re:What about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cho was a nut job plain and simple. Beyond that the media can not add anything insightful or useful. "Nut job kills some people at a college in the USA." End of story. Ironically on NPR a couple of days ago the news went like this: "A bomber in Baghdad blew himself and 200 other people up. And in other news, we have a 2 hour interview with a guy who knew a guy who knew Cho and says this all could have prevented if only..." Well not that exactly but that's the general idea. You want to know what it's like to live in Iraq right now? Imagine this massacre at Virginia Tech happening every day and in your own back yard. Or how about Darfur, where this sort of massacre happens daily except that the people doing the killing are using machetes.
Not that I mean to belittle the events at Virginia Tech. The people who went through that will be scarred for the rest of their lives. It's just a pity that the media can't be bothered to give that level of attention to anything that happens outside this country, whether we're directly responsible for those events (As is the case in Iraq) or not. Oh, and if any of the media is reading this, I'm pretty sure the violence in Iraq and Darfur isn't caused by violent video games either. Just to give you a heard start. Now off you go, and don't come back until you have a real story.
Parent
Dr. Phil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dr. Phil (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it this way: a conservative watching Fox News is going to have their conservative beliefs reaffirmed. An environmentalist at an Al Gore lecture will get the same. (And maybe a good nap, too. *zing!*) When you surround yourself with people and media that espouses beliefs like your own, you're going to embrace those more. If you are a violent, aggressive person and spend all your time listening to, watching, and playing violent entertainment, you are encouraging yourself to become more violent.
Parent
Violence is caused by bad parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that too many parents fall into one of two categories:
a) The parents who shelter there children from all negative stimulus, and then turn them lose on society at 18 without the ability to determine right from wrong themselves. These new adults now go into society without having someone to tell them what to do and act out on the impulses.
b) The parents who do nothing to develop the child's sense of right from wrong. These parents belive that by never having a consequence for any action their child will magically develop a set moral values. Children who are raised like this can develop tendancies to lash out because they have been taught that their actions have no consequences.
Instead of banning violent video games, we should ban bad parents.
Re:Violence is caused by bad parenting (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen to that! There should be a fucking license. In order to get one, you should have to have a job and insurance, be able to pass some basic tests, and so on.
We should also sterilize (as reversibly as possible) anyone who begins collecting AFDC or TANF, so that they cannot become a further drain on society.
Anyone who would name their child after a car or a bottle of alcohol is automatically disqualified. Disqualify their relatives if they would name their child after a misspelling of same. Kill their whole family if they name their child after a misspelling of a french name like "deseray". Those genes have got to go.
No, but seriously, I think people should have to get a high-maintenance pet. People who raise a well-adjusted pet can have a child license. People who don't can try again. Although I'm sure this will get a lot of flak from the no-cruelty-to-animals types, and I rather agree with them for the most part, I'd rather see people be bad with a pet than a child.
A friend's wife wanted a dog. He wanted to wait, but they got it anyway (of course) because she wouldn't let it alone. Since then he has become primarily responsible for an animal for which he was not prepared. But besides her lack of interest in cleaning up after the animal and such, she sends the dog mixed messages every time she talks to it. When she's upset she still uses her stupid baby voice. She's confusing that dog into oblivion. Think about people who do this shit to their kids! That is the real reason why you see people screaming at their children in the K-Mart when they do something wrong. The kids were programmed by their idiot parents giving them inconsistent messages when they did things they weren't supposed to do, and now some part of their brain thinks they're supposed to do those things!
Most people have no business whatsoever having children. They do not understand even the most basic principles of parenting. Frankly I have enough trouble with my pet (although she is very happy and loves me and all that, she loves me too much and is trying to get frisky with myself and my lady, which is very odd when it comes from a small parrot) and know that I don't need to be having children at this stage in my life. If I want to make a contribution to the lives of children, there are lots of other ways to do that. (Keep your dirty humor to yourself.)
Parent
Seung-Hui Cho was 23 years old. (Score:4, Insightful)
I consider the whole, impressionable children thing to be dubious when we are dealing with older teenagers, anyway, but I consider it ridiculous when talking about adult men.
So, what then are Dr. Phil and Jack Thompson trying to say, that video games will turn anyone into a killer, even adults? I think it's interesting that this guy didn't commit any serious crimes until he was well into adult hood.
To me, this represents a shift in the debate. At Jonesboro, you had children commiting mass murder, so trying to figure out what made innocent little boys into monsters makes sense in a way. This is not what we have at Virginia Tech.
Are people going to do this with David Berkowitz now? Jeffrey Dahmer? etc? If some 40 year old murderer gets caught, are they going to check him for Counter Strike experience.
Nugent is smarter (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/19/commentary.nugen
Re:Nugent is smarter (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not worried about being "unarmed" in a mass shooting, because those events are incredibly rare. You may as well wear a lightning rod and an aluminum body suit wherever you go, arguing that it's necessary to protect you against lightning strikes. It's about as likely to happen to you.
The thing is, I don't trust Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel to use his gun properly, especially since he can buy it down at the K-mart without training, testing, licensing, or even a background check that will pick up whether he is mentally unstable (as happened in the case of this Cho kid).
I am worried that Cletus will blow my head off as I reach for my wallet, which he mistakes for a gun. Or that he won't store it properly and his kid will blow my kid's head off as they play cops and robbers. Or a hundred other things that can go wrong when deadly weapons are as common and as well regulated as toasters.
I don't trust the potentially unskilled and irresponsible to have guns. If that means I can't have one either, so be it.
Parent
Indifference (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids picked on him in high school. No one stood up for him.
Kids picked on him in college. He bought guns, and killing people.
The only time he every really stood up for himself was when he turned violent. And at that point it was too late. I think it's the culture of indifference that caused this to grow inside an emotionally unstable loner. It has nothing to do with the music he listened to, games he played, or lack of prayer in schools. Society did nothing more than try to ignore him, while he finally refused to be ignored. And in a tragic and unforgivable way, we all stood up to finally pay attention to what he had to say.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids picked on him in middle school. No one stood up for him. Kids picked on him in high school. No one stood up for him. Kids picked on him in college. He bought guns, and killing people. The only time he every really stood up for himself was when he turned violent. And at that point it was too late. I think it's the culture of indifference that caused this to grow inside an emotionally unstable loner. It has nothing to do with the music he listened to, games he played, or lack of prayer in schools. Society did nothing more than try to ignore him, while he finally refused to be ignored. And in a tragic and unforgivable way, we all stood up to finally pay attention to what he had to say.
Maybe he should have tried standing up for himself in middle school, or at the very least had the common sense to understand that sometimes people are going to treat you unfairly and maybe it's best to just blow it off. Life isn't fair. Instead of building a wall he should have made friends with someone instead. I got picked on too. That argument doesn't hold water. The same goes for high school and college. The simple fact is that he was a complete psycho nutcase that held the world in contempt and had n
Re:Indifference (Score:5, Interesting)
The scary thing is that, were it not for the influence of my girlfriend (now wife and soon to be mother of my child), I could have ended up like him. In reading his "rambling and incoherent manifesto," as people are calling it, I saw a lot of what I hated about my freshman year of college. I hated that everyone seemed to be there for hedonism. I hated that fraternities and sororities and sports teams got all the attention. I hated that I was ignored by everyone around me, and I started to resent them for it.
I was that way until I found a place where I could fit in; a smaller school, and an off-campus apartment with my then-girlfriend, and a little bit of that hedonism for myself. If this guy had someone in his life that could make him feel at home, and to reassure him that not everyone was heartless and self-centered, maybe we'd have 33 more people in the world today.
Parent
Re:Indifference (Score:5, Insightful)
The even scarier thing to me is that were it not for the fact that I couldn't afford to go to a four year school, I probably would have ended up like him. I was picked on from sixth grade until I got out of school with a CHSPE at the age of fifteen. I was the big kid who was a mama's boy and thus a total pussy. So the only time I ever got into a real fight (and not just picked on by bullies) I gave the kid two black eyes and a bloody spot on his forehead from beating his head into the ground, and got expelled from the school by the administration which was too lazy to do its job. (This was Del Mar Middle School in Santa Cruz County, for those who keep track of such things.) The scary part of that story is that due to my ineptitude he ended up sitting on my back at one point, and I actually blacked out completely and when I came back to myself, I was sitting on his back and beating his head against the ground. (You can tell by the way I keep bringing that up that I am still both enthralled and repelled by this fact.) During that time I could have easily strangled him or gouged both his eyes out. It's a good thing all I did was get up and sit back down on him.
Frankly, I was basically the same person until about the age of 23 or so. It took me that long to "grow up", or something. That's when I stopped being a total mama's boy. Very strange that once I became more willing to commit violence, I became less violent in my heart. There's some kind of bizarre lesson there.
Schools need to make stopping bullying their number one priority for a variety of reasons. The MOST important one is that kids who grow up as bullies grow up into bullies. It creates a whole zero-sum kind of bully mindset that frankly I find to be pervasive throughout American society. But the other reason is that it could have the potential to stop crap like this from happening.
A lot of people say that harassment is what kids need to break out of their shells and become one with the game, but that's certainly not how it happened for me, and I maintain that it is helping to maintain our culture of alternating anger and apathy.
Parent
Re:Indifference (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think there is any question that he was rational. He acted very rationally all the way through, with tons of forethought and advance planning.
Does that make him sane? Fuck no! He was nuttier than a fricking squirrel convention. Just from what I've read about the guy it seems like he fits the DSM-IV definition of a Sociopath quite well. I don't know how the hell they committed him and missed that.
Parent
Re:Indifference (Score:5, Informative)
I'm really at a loss for where you're getting this idea of him being ignored, or even picked on, when all of the reports have shown the exact opposite - someone who forcefully ignored the rest of the world's attempts to include him.
Parent
Re:Indifference (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Kids picked on him in middle school. No one stood up for him.
Kids picked on him in high school. No one stood up for him.
Kids picked on him in college. He bought guns, and killing people.
The only time he every really stood up for himself was when he turned violent. And at that point it was too late. I think it's the culture of indifference that caused this to grow inside an emotionally unstable loner. It has nothing to do with the music he listened to, games he played, or lack of prayer in schools. Society did nothing more than try to ignore him, while he finally refused to be ignored. And in a tragic and unforgivable way, we all stood up to finally pay attention to what he had to say.
Did kids pick on him in college? It sounded to me that his interpersonal problems involved his being awkward around women moreso than being picked on. Furthermore, he was (to use the technical term) fucking nuts.
I don't think that this is the same case as the Columbine shootings.
I don't disagree that the situation likely had little to do with the music he listened to or the video games that he played.
Re:Indifference (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, he was at an agonizing dead end. What some call "a dark night of the soul" and others call "hitting bottom".
There are at least 7 places to go from there:
1) He could do something drastic to change his life. When you have nothing to lose, you have no fear of the consequences and you're immune to criticism because there's nothing "they" can do to you that's not already done. More than a few great people started off with the mantra "Oh yeah, well I'll show them".
2) He could luck out...either find people who can connect to him (the internet is great that way) or find a passion that could absorb his time and keep his mind off his isolation.
3) He could become more spiritual and realize that even in suffering there is meaning, and that while there is life, there is hope. It sounds corny, but people have gone through a lot worse and have come through it.
4) He could just give up life and go quietly.
5) He could just numb himself to everything with drugs or alcohol.
6) He could just give up life and go in a "blaze of glory", either by living recklessly with a death wish.
7) He could just give up life and go in a "blaze of glory", either by lashing out and taking down as many people with him as possible.
Most people see themselves to options 1-6, but option 7 is definitely an option if the person *completely* looks outside himself through hatred and jeolosy instead of inwards at his own deficiencies. If there's nothing inside, there's no fear, no pain, no pride, no empathy, no love, no loneliness, no remorse, just raw hatred, and final payback becomes the reason you were born, and getting back at "them" in the name of all those like you becomes the meaning of your life.
At least that's my theory. Only he would know for sure.
I've dealt successfully with people who were at the end of their rope and willing to either give in or were so obsessed with "them" that they were stuck in a downward spiral. I don't know if my experience is valid of 7s, but if my experience holds true, the best way to deal with 7s is to be empathetic and to use the socratic method and patient nonjudgmental listening to slowly chip away at his vendetta (without telling them what they should think) and redirecting his passion to (1) or some place else more constructive, because what other people do with their lives doesn't matter nearly as much as what you do with your own. This would only works if you know the source of their vendetta and I'm not sure that was clear to those around him, so I'm not sure if I could have helped any differently than those closest to him.
Parent
End all Genetic forensics. (Score:2)
Someone could also argue this is the other "CSI effect" After commiting a murder as a crime of passion, a new criminal realizes the he will be caught and sent to to jail or even killed. The perception is genetic science insures he(or she) will be caught. They then decide to 'go for it' and settle every grudge in the time before they are caught because there is nothing else to lose.
We need to restrict access to police dramas depicting successful investigations!
Oh wait that's stupid. :/
GamerPride is behind that statement as well. (Score:2)
Just mentioning the fact that my website, GamerPride.com, is strongly behind the fact that this had nothing at all to do with gaming.
...And Rush Limbaugh defends video games (Score:3, Informative)
nothing to grapple with, really (Score:5, Insightful)
Knee-jerk (Score:5, Interesting)
So, who has jumped on the VA Tech bandwagon:
Gun control proponents (obviously)
Gun control opponents ("let them shoot back")
Violent game opponents ("It was just like a first-person shooter")
People who want more funding for mental health programs.
People who just want to put weirdos in nuthouses
Security people ("A rent-a-cop in every classroom keeps everyone safe. Oh, and us employed")
Security consultants (obviously)
Drug warriors (he must have been high to do that)
Drug legalization proponents (if he'd just smoked a little weed he'd have had a better perspective)
OK, I made the last two up. But Ariana Huffington (who falls into several other categories) validated "drug warriors" for me, though referring to legal drugs.
Personally, I blame Microsoft and SCO.
Who to blame: a suggestion (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really a gamer, but the idea of turning the tables on the assholes who were more interested in pointing a finger as part of their political agenda than in learning about reality amuses me.
Dr Phil (Score:3, Insightful)
He's excellent sample of generic level of education in US.
You can be a retard and still manage to be called a Dr.
I'm not sure if anyone in US takes him seriously, but here you'd take Conan O'Brien more seriously than Phil.
CHO DID NOT PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!!!! (Score:4, Informative)
MAYBE WE SHOULD BAN MS WORD INSTEAD.
What I found striking was that the suitemate said there was never anything aggressive about Cho ever. He never got excited or angry, and even when they tried talking to him, Cho never reacted with disdain or disgust... he was simply emotionless. He said he never saw him do anything violent ever, and he only saw him either in his room or watching tv (wrestling and SpikeTV).
MAYBE WE SHOULD BAN WRESTLING AND SPIKE TV.
selling a gun to a mentally ill person (Score:5, Insightful)
What I've been wondering is: how come that someone who has "blipped" on the radar at least several times as a very disturbed person can still legally buy a gun? Now I know that a persistent person will be able to get a gun no matter what, but can we *please* make it a bit harder than going into a store and paying with your CC?
Over reaction? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, there is an insidious culture that is coming to be common practice in our society. It comes from having half of the world's population of lawyers in one country. We now live in a day and age where a woman can spill coffee on herself and successfully sue for millions of dollars. Just imagine if, instead of not playing any video games as seems to be the case, Cho played Counter-Strike. Think of the huge class-action lawsuit that would most likely follow. It's easy to contemplate, because it would be expected. Today we no longer await one trial on any large publicly known crime, but two: the criminal trial and the civil.
With people like Dr. Phil and Jack Thompson blaming video games, and getting as much media time as they do, how likely in the future will it be for video game makers to get a fair civil trial? That those two did so without even bothering to check facts, and the media's willingness to report such until proven otherwise, reflects a growing trend of belief that violent video games are strongly connected to young people that commit these types of armed massacres.
The pro-video game groups are making a large point out of this because they are fighting a losing battle to change the minds of Americans regarding these issues.
Real violence, not make believe is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The local news always leads off with a sensational report on some horrible crime in the area, and the national news always reports on the latest suicide bombing in Iraq and the steady stream of dead and maimed soldiers. We Americans have made it clear that we see large scale, organized violence (i.e., war) or the threat of same to be our preferred solution to nearly every problem we face in the world. When, invariably, we kill innocent people, our generals shrug their shoulders and "regret" the "collateral damage". They always blame it on the other side, claiming "they made us do it".
And then everybody is stunned, shocked and surprised when an individual in the US does the same thing on a much smaller scale. The VPI shooting was basically a slow-motion suicide bombing. As horrible as it was, the same thing happens almost daily in Iraq, killing about the same number of people. And why? Because some guy has serious psychological problems, a sociopathic personality and an almost complete lack of empathy for other human beings. The only difference is that one of them was elected to office, and because of the power we continue to let him have, many more people have died and continue to die as a result than died in Blacksburg a few days ago.
be careful about blaming to god botherers (Score:4, Insightful)
You can try blaming religeon all you want, but I wouldn't recommend you do it to their faces. You will not meet a more dangerous bunch of humans than humans in the through of a 'god' inspired frenzy. I don't just mean islamists either, there have been more than a few bombers who worshiped the pincushion appendages guy, still are in fact.
Under such a condition, the most normal, loving person can become a killer. All it takes is a leader they trust completelly for moral/life guidance to declare that some unworthy person or group of people is about to kill/attack/otherwise harm them or take away their way of life, and it's out with the pitchforks and firebrands. It's happened often enough.
Want to test it out? Stick a bunch of islamist fundamentalists, fundamentalist christians and fundamentalist jews in a big field with guns in the middle, and watch what happens. I bet it won't be reasonable debate.
Parent