Yesterday morning in Manchester, CT a disgruntled employee of Hartford Distributors, a local Budweiser distributor, shot and killed 8 individuals and wounded others before taking his own life. Being someone with a somewhat personal connection to the establishment, it angers me at his actions. While he may or may not have stolen from the company (had a meeting to decide his future employment moments prior to shooting) or been racially harassed by his co-workers it is not a reason to exact revenge against them.
Anyone else have any thoughts on all the senseless violence today in this world? I think that it is an act of cowardice to do something like this man did. Any thoughts or comments? Just trying to gauge the general consensus on issues such as this.
Below is the link with updated facts so far….

http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/hartfor...ster-shooting-

I'm against it.

Yes, but was it cowardly? I don't really think it has anything to do with cowardice (or bravery either). Desperation, hate, lack of regard for human life, but the "coward" label gets thrown about way too freely. Also the poll didn't include "none of the above" so I couldn't vote.

You don't think he was a coward because he killed people because he may or may not have lost his job? In today's world if he really thought he was being racially harassed he could have brought a lawsuit against the company.

By taking matters into his own hands and destroying the lives of 8 families and affecting so many more, IMO that is cowardice especially when he takes his own life. Failure to face your own actions > any sympathy from me.

I didn't say I had any sympathy for him. What he did was disgusting. But not necessarily cowardly. It seems to me that if a coward wanted to shoot up the workplace and then kill himself, he'd be unable to follow through with such drastic action.

Hmmm... I see that as a valid counter-argument to my original point to some degree.

I guess we have to agree to disagree because IMO the act of cowardice occurred when he decided to act on his obvious emotional instability in the manner he did. Also IMO, it is cowardly to cop out/not face the negative externality that he created prior to his suicide.

Thanks for your input. Much appreciated

I don't know if it is the greatest act of cowardice, but it certainly strikes me as a very cowardly and pathetic thing to do.

That doesn't mean one can't have sympathy both for the victims (both direct and indirect) and the shooter.

Sympathy does not imply lenience or approval. It is important to understand people and to keep perspective - if this guy had done so, maybe we'd gotten away with some harsh words.

What does this have to do with RGT? I didn't see any religious content in either the article or the OP.

Did not know where it fit in so I just guessed here... a mod can move it if they know of a better place where it fits in

Oh no biggy....People will probably like the change of pace...

Nothing in this is cowardly. I don't think you folks understand the word.

In this sense we use cowardly to insult the shooter just as we used cowardly to insult the 911 attackers. But there isn't an element of cowardice involved.

This was an act of rage and revenge by a person wronged, in fact or in their mind. It is perfectly normal human behavior. In modern society we have errected constructs that allow people to hold enormous and arbitrary power over others and egregious abuse occurs.

Back in caveman days this sort of thing would be limited by the threat that someone mistreated might simply whack the offender on the head. Now, in our society, abusers of authority may mockingly laugh in the faces of those caught in the webs. There is no recourse, no hope of fairness or justice for those who find themselves being screwed over.

So of course we are going to see people snap from time to time and it has nothing to do with cowardice at all.

Its sad often that the shooter is sometimes mentally off and the offense was largely imagined and also that those innocent of any tyranny are often caught up in the act. Its hard to see how as many as eight individuals could have been knowingly involved in mistreating this man.

Another wrinkle is the false sense of entitlement that many blacks and other persons of color have as a result of all the racial agitation in the country. Many feel that any roadblock they run into in their lives must be a result of racism. Thank you Jesse Al Charlie et all.

So you can get a pretty complicated situation. Its easier to just label this a cowardly act rather than try to understand it.

Anyone who takes their own life is a coward.

This guy was a loser and is in line to Hell sitting next to Hitler.

While this act is horrific, its certainly not the actions a coward would take. A coward would sit in their dark room and stew over this without taking any action. (legal or otherwise) Walking into a place and murdering several people certainly does not fit into my definition of "cowardly". I want to say it takes a huge pair of balls, but that almost sounds like a compliment.

Yeah, this. I find it annoying when people can't use words that accurately describe someone who has done something bad. For instance, Bill Maher basicly lost his network slot for saying that the 9/11 hijackers weren't cowards.

People seem to have an issue with realizing that doing horrible things can require a lot of things that are generally described as positive virtues: guts, determination, intelligence, etc.

Not to tangent the thread but it makes me mad that people cannot have nuanced views of things. Attacker=bad so only negative words can be used to describe him. Or, if you criticize a trait of a good person, that too is unacceptable.

re: the poll: odd poll and odd choices. It strikes me that the poll also needs "all of the above" and "none of the above"

I too puzzle over the "coward" label. I think it is possible that it gets misused quite a bit.

Personally, cowardice is not the trait that comes to mind when I read about this incident. For me, it is more like a (false) feeling of powerlessness.

Could I be convinced that cowardice played a possibly large roll in the shooters actions? Probably so. It just doesn't jump out at me.

just another modern day sampson, amirite?

relax, im just kidding

I think though that it depends on the context. In the case of 9/11 the people were going through with their convictions to the point of death, definitely not cowardly.

But in the case of a man walking into work and killing a bunch of people then shooting himself, I would say that is cowardly. He basically gave up on life. Rather than push through into an unknown.

For all we know he may have thought he was acting as the hand of God, administering divine vengeance upon the evildoers. In which case he'd be following through on his convictions very much like the 9-11 hijackers. Or maybe not, but I don't think it's all that uncommon for gunmen on a rampage to have similar delusions of grandeur.

With respect to murdering others, I don't label that cowardice. The man is lashing out in rage. Its horrible, selfish, unthinking, mean... But cowardly doesn't come to mind.

I might agree that the killer comitting suicide after the murder spree might be an act of cowardice. Since, in my mind, these people kill themselves because they don't want to face being held responsible for their actions.

I think this last sentence is what makes me look at this specific instance as cowardly. If he went out guns a blazing in a shoot out with the cops or something, I think that I would be more inclined to agree with you.

Is suicide by cop braver than killing oneself?


It might also be that forcing someone else to kill them when they really would prefer not to and thus could do emotional harm to the cop.

If people were kinder to each other, there would very seldom be a problem with have weapons around.

there are far more cowardly things than suicide or homicide

let me clarify... what i was trying to say was that the suicide at the end is cowardly... the shooter would have needed to have the "balls" to carry out the crime but when it ends the way it did thats a "cowardly" cop out. don't ruin the lives of the victims and then not allow them to see justice

Definitely not a coward. Was he a piece of ****? Yes he was. Thats much worse than being a coward anyways.

whenever given the option to vote for all options in a poll, I do.