Amish school shooting

[palefrost]

If you havent been following this story....brief bit here:

PARADISE, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A 7-year-old girl who was shot by a truck driver at an Amish schoolhouse died early Tuesday, the Hershey Medical Center told CNN, raising the death toll from the assault to six.
Pennsylvania state troopers confirmed the deaths of five girls and the shooter, who took over the school Monday, lined up girls at the blackboard, tied them up and shot them.
Three of the girls -- two students and a teenage aide -- died at the scene, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey Miller said. Another girl died early Tuesday at a hospital in Delaware, state troopers said.

Miller said Roberts' grudge did not appear to involve the Amish community and that he may have chosen his target out of convenience, perhaps thinking "getting into a school like this was maybe just a little bit easier."

The Amish are conservative Christians who shun all modern conveniences, even electricity. All is simplicity.
They do not drive automobiles but instead use horse-drawn buggies. Their farming equipment also is horse-drawn and has metal wheels instead of rubber tires.
They stress humility, family and community, and separation from the world. They dress plainly -- the women in long, solid-colored dresses, and the men in dark colors and wide-brimmed hats.
One of their deepest-held tenets is a devotion to peace and nonviolence. They do not customarily fight back when attacked, heeding Christ's instruction to turn the other cheek.

I wonder if this will impact the way the amish live there lives. If the attack was done because there were an easy target with a school that was not guarded in a society that is unstable can they continue to pretend they are living in the past?

 

[vicki2]

I happened to have tv on yesterday afternoon as this was going on, and I stayed with it the entire time it was on. What a horrifying situation but I don't think it will effect the Amish and the way they live. It might make them even shyer of outsiders, but there was nothing they could have done differently to prevent or help what happened.

 

[dong]

I do not think it will change anything- as far as I can understand the Amish mentality, it is not supposed to. Things can happen and will happen and they will simply know to turn the other cheek. As I've said elsewhere, I want to know what the deal with Roberts actually is.

On a slightly unrelated note, has anybody seen Witness?

 

[Agaric]

This actually vaguely reminded me of Witness, but only because both involves the Amish and guns. School shootings are one of the saddest by-product of the United States and its culture, I must admit. Then again I'm only basing that on the information I heard in Bowling for Columbine, so I'm not entirely sure if we're unique in our desires to shoot up cafeterias full of kids.

 

[palefrost]

Its not just in america that school shootings happen. The last one took place in Canada.

 

[sarah]

I don't think this will actually change the Amish way of thinking/living. It may cause a ripple in the way their society thinks for a while to come, but I think ultimately the Amish will decide to stay the way they have always been.

 

[dong]

This actually vaguely reminded me of Witness, but only because both involves the Amish and guns. School shootings are one of the saddest by-product of the United States and its culture, I must admit. Then again I'm only basing that on the information I heard in Bowling for Columbine, so I'm not entirely sure if we're unique in our desires to shoot up cafeterias full of kids.

The first notable example of a shooting rampage I ever heard of took place in Tasmania, actually, back in the early 90's. It's just that where firearms are more readily available or distributed (regardless of legal status...) obviously there's more potential for it to be used.

 

[dong]

Right! I've gone and read up various journalistic sources on this incident, and of particular interest to me is Roberts' personal history. Particularly regarding his self-identified predilection to child molestation, manifest not least in the form of dreams, and the record of his shame, self-hatred, and hatred for God.

I shall emphasise- when the result is this, it is horrifying and tragic. But I urge everybody to carefully manage the outburst of vengeance and hatred, for it is in "disturbing" revelations like this that we can come to understand and address the underlying social issues that mediate such events. It is here more than ever that an appropriate respose is critical.

Thus, while it is regrettable that the shooting happened, and nothing will bring back the lives and the peace lost, I'd like to have a look at what causes this sense of shame and self-hatred. A more vexing dilemma is in taking a closer look at the moral dimensions of malicious predilections/proclivities, and the inconsistencies entailing acknowledgement of emerging evidence and the purportedly 'fair' nature of any moral system. Again, this really is particularly relevant to the thread regarding pedophilia...not because it's about pedophilia per se, but about what underlies our discussion of it.

 

[hokeshel]

I don't think it will effect the way they live. They try to live so purely as it is and they have shown that they do not let the acitons of the workd around them dictate hoe they will live. If they changed due to this tragedy, I think they would see it as going against their firm beliefs. I believe theri steadfastness is one of the reasons many poeple respect them.

 

[Agaric]

Thank you for the insight into shootings that have occurred in other countries, I wasn't even aware of them. I think what I was driving at was that these kinds of shootings happen with much greater frequency in the United States.

 

[palefrost]

Right! I've gone and read up various journalistic sources on this incident, and of particular interest to me is Roberts' personal history. Particularly regarding his self-identified predilection to child molestation, manifest not least in the form of dreams, and the record of his shame, self-hatred, and hatred for God.

They have tried to trace any pedophile behavior he might have had in the past and cant find any evidence. They contacted the girls he said he had molested and all said it never happened. He didnt even molest the Amish girls.

I really believe he was delusional.

I blows my mind how excepting the Amish have been in lite of this tradgy and i wonder how this will effect the younger Amish's views of strangers in the community in the future.

 

[vicki2]

The Amish have been really admirable during all this ...I have been constantly amazed at them. It says a lot for a strong faith yet they are so quiet about it and I'm so impressed at something so genuine.

 

[dong]

I really believe he was delusional.

Quite possibly, but I wonder to what extent? I was referring to his references to dreams...granting that he was delusional, why would he be having those delusions in the first place and just what would the implications be?

 

[hokeshel]

What if this had been a school of some other faith? How woudl the public react if it were, for instance, a catholic school? Do you think the public would react differnetly, do you think the school woudl react differently? Just curious.

 

[dong]

Do you think the public would react differnetly, do you think the school woudl react differently? Just curious.

Yes to the first, possibly to the second. A relevant and unique feature of the Amish community was their pacifist nature and their cultural isolation. The mentality I'm picking up here is a "what did they ever do to you!?!?" Were this to occur within the context of a more culturally mainstream environment, I suspect there would be quite a difference, not necessarily in magnitude, but in the way the reactions manifest and the reasons for such.

Possibly this question has implicit references to the way various religiously mediated cultural institutions/mechanisms/features are percieved and contested in society today. What do you think?