Violence At Northern Illinois University

A lot of people are scratching their heads over the gunman who shot and killed six people for killing himself at Northern Illinois University yesterday, but it's obvious that he was a troubled young man who, despite his stellar work at NIU as an undergraduate student, clearly had serious demons to battle with. I'm not excusing him, merely explaining the situation as I see it.

Some people wondered if Steven Kazmierczak may have been mad at a girlfriend and chose Valentine's Day as his day of attack for that reason. His interest in matters of peace and justice, particularly criminal justice, may provide some answers. (The attack occured 79 years to the day after another infamous Illinois shootout - the St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago.) But most people are baffled by the fact that he was a serious, industrious student who was outgoing and engaging. One telltale clue was that he was on medication for some kind of psychiatric problem, and his possible failure to take his medicine on schedule is under consideration.

Some pundits will blame the shooting on Kazmierczak's medicinal dependence, or lack thereof, but even if he had been off his medication, he couldn't have shot anyone without a gun. Yet he managed to get three of them. :-(