This article makes some points along a similar vein as the thread's original topic.

I've been asked by my old Peer Counseling mentor to come talk to a bunch of high school students about the Virginia Tech shootings - I did a lot of counseling with kids during/after the L.A. riots, after Columbine, and now this sad situation.

We now the the lovely copy-cat attempts at publicity to contend with.

Do we put such a high price on fame that people will go to any lenghts to achieve it?

I have no evidence to back this up, but I wonder if it really is the "fame" of being an infamous murder of innocents that makes "them" do the things they do. To what end? You're dead, prob. a large crap in your pants - is there some sort of gratification that comes from this?

I wonder?

For many, it seems not so much that they particularly want to be famous because they killed someone. Rather, they want to be heard and killing people is the only way they can see to get heard. For example, had the VT killer sent that package to NBC without the accompanying slaughter, what do you think the odds of it getting as much attention as it has would be?

And, many people can't truly imagine being dead and insensate to the world. Many of us deep down think we'll somehow keep experiencing the world in some way even after we're dead.

I guess we'll won't really know what the ultimate driver is. No reason is makes a lot of sense to me.

NA, AS, GD -

So true.

It seems the mentality was "I'll show them" on an individual level more than "ooh, I made the front page of the LA Times." But, I think that itself is an individual mentality too. David Coresh (sp) I'm sure wanted to make headlines - as did Timothy McVay (sp).