What Part Does The Media Play

My husband and I were having a conversation at dinner tonight.  He brought up a very good point.  Why does the media need to cover tragedies like the Connecticut school shooting to the degree in which they do?  Why do they make these killers famous?

Everyone knows the names of the kids that shot up Columbine, and the guy who shot up the movie theatre, and the Amish school...why can't the media just leave it alone?  These killers are mentally unstable.  Most of them are suicidal as well... Don't you think that all the hype about "undestanding the motive of the killings" and almost glamorizing the tragedies makes these people think, "I might as well go out with a bang??"

And ENOUGH about the gun debates.  Good heavens people!!  That has about as much to do with this as talking about the price of tea in China.  What about MENTAL ILLNESS???  Does anyone but me recognize that ALL these people were messed up in the head?  And most probably showed signs all their lives.

But they did not get the help they needed, and therefore, their lives ended the way they did.

I would like to see the news just do the news, and then stop.  Leave these people to grieve in peace.  And get to the REAL bottom of the issues.  Mental illness affects SO many people in this country.  And many of them are either homeless or in prison.  And they certainly aren't getting any help there.

Mental illness has such a stigma attached to it, that's why we don't talk about it.  We try to assign blame, and figure out whose fault it is that Johnny has uncontrollable rage, and no one will help the single mom raising him.

Wake up America.  It's not about bullets.  It's about brains.