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Check out the above referenced Ceasefire site by clicking on the link and let us know what you think. We want to hear all sides of the debate. Do you think that the President of the United States can do anything to staunch the violence in the schools or are there factors that have nothing to do with law and politics? The Reuters article below makes reference to “lyrics to various songs by KMFDM, including ‘Stray Bullet,’ (that) were also posted on a Web site maintained by Eric Harris, one of the two gunmen in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.” Is culture a factor in school shootings and should Hollywood and the music industry take some responsibility?

I am your holy totem
I am your sick taboo
Radical and radiant
I’m your nightmare coming true
I am your worst enemy
I am your dearest friend
Malignantly Malevolent
I am of divine descent

I have come to rock your world
I have come to shake your faith
Anathematic Anarchist
I have come to take my place

I am your unconsciousness
I am unrestrained excess
Metamorphic restlessness
I’m your unexpectdness

I am your apocalypse
I am your belief unwrought
Monolithic juggernaut
I’m the illegitimate son of god

Stray bullet
From the barrel of love
Stray bullet
From the heavens above
Stray bullet
Ready or not
I’m the illegitimate son of god

These are lyrics from KMFDM, a rock band with lyrics that have now been implicated in at least two school shootings. Maybe someone should sue groups like KMFDM (and there are many)instead of legal actions against gun manufacturers when criminals abuse weapons. Jihadist attacks on schools occur regularly in places like Thailand but the media underreports such religiously motivated school shootings because they are so common around the world. There are no Hindus, Buddhists, Christians or Jews that engage in organized attacks on schools. Noam Chomsky and others like him equate the U.S. Military mission in Iraq with terrorism.

Even if you accept the statistics touted by the anti-war movement, the U.S. Government has explicitly denied that we are in a holy war; at the same time, the Imams and other spokesmen for world-wide Jihad are unequivocal in announcing that such acts of terror are performed in the name of Allah. But what does this have to do with rock lyrics?

Ask yourself: Is the culture that we are transmitting to future generations one that can withstand the sustained commitment of Allah’s soldiers? It took centuries for the Turks to bring down the walls of Constantinople but they accomplished their goal in 1453. We are quickly tearing down the walls of our own city from within. How? With lyrics like the lyrics set forth above.

The following article from the New York Times deals with the latest school shooting in Finland which has the “world’s third highest per capita gun ownership….” But, before you go off half-cocked, bear in mind that little Finland fought off the Soviets in 1939 and 1941 with Mosin-Nagant Russian rifles (many manufactured in Czarist times) and skis that enabled the Finnish riflemen to shoot and ski into the forests- often carrying off additional Russian weapons and ammunition. Maybe this is why the Finlanders still preserve gun ownership.

Should Finland’s proud heritage be replaced with a new heritage like the one that groups such as KMFDM would bestow upon succeeding generations of Finnish citizens?

By REUTERS
Published: November 8, 2007
TUUSULA, Finland, Nov. 7 (Reuters) — Seven children and a principal were killed Wednesday when an 18-year-old student opened fire at a school here, hours after he posted a video on YouTube foreshadowing the massacre.

The student walked through the corridors of Jokela High School firing into classroom after classroom with a .22-caliber handgun. He died in a hospital after shooting himself in the head, doctors said.

The police identified the shooter as Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Agence-France Presse reported.

Two girls, five boys and a woman who was the principal of the school in this southern Finland town were killed in the shootings, the police said.

A teacher, Kim Kiuru, said the gunman had been keenly interested in war history and extremist movements.

“He was moving systematically through the school hallways, knocking on the doors and shooting through the doors,” said Mr. Kiuru, who was teaching an eighth-grade class when the gunfire started.

“It felt unreal,” he added. “A pupil I have taught myself was running toward me, screaming, a pistol in his hand.”

The weapon used in the massacre was held legally, and the gunman had obtained a permit for it just three weeks ago through a gun club, the police said.

The YouTube video, titled “Jokela High School Massacre — 11/7/2007,” was posted Tuesday by a user called Sturmgeist89.

Set to a song called “Stray Bullet” by the industrial rock band KMFDM, the video shows a photo of a building that appears to be Jokela High School. The photo breaks apart to reveal a red-tinted picture of a man pointing a handgun at the camera.

“I am prepared to fight and die for my cause,” read a posting by a user of the same name. “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.”

Hours after the massacre, the user’s account was suspended.

Lyrics to various songs by KMFDM, including “Stray Bullet,” were also posted on a Web site maintained by Eric Harris, one of the two gunmen in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

In a statement, the band’s record company, Metropolis Records, said it was “extremely saddened” by the shootings.

(Emphasis added)

Jokela High School serves about 500 middle and high school students.

“When police arrived there was complete chaos, pupils were jumping out of the building through the windows,” said Timo Leppala, a police inspector.

Despite Finland’s having the world’s third highest per capita gun ownership after the United States and Yemen, violent incidents are rare at Finnish schools.

According to Finnish news media, there have been four stabbings at schools since 1999. None of these were fatal.

Hannu Joensivu, the mayor of Tuusula, described the town as “a peaceful place” where “nothing like this has happened and nothing like this is to be expected either.”

Note: Finland is one of the only countries of which I am aware that held out against the Soviets- twice (in 1939 and 1941:

At the time it started, it was named by the Finns to make clear its relationship to the preceding Winter War of 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940. The Soviet Union, however, perceived the war merely as one of the fronts of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany and its allies.[5] Similarly, Germany saw its own operations in the region as a part of its overall war efforts of World War II.

The United Kingdom declared war on Finland on 6 December 1941, followed by its Dominions shortly afterwards. The Continuation War is a rare case of democracies declaring war on other democracies but the British Empire forces were not major participants in the war. Nazi Germany took part by providing critical material support and military cooperation to Finland. The United States did not fight or declare war against either party, but sent substantial matériel to the Soviet Union for use in the war effort against Germany and its allies.

Hostilities ended in 1944, and the formal conclusion of the Continuation War was ratified by the Paris peace treaty of 1947.

Thus, it is apparent that Finland accomplished such feats of military arms with little or no assistance from other democracies and with the combined resources of England and the U.S. backing the Soviet military machine. Most of what it accomplished was accomplished by Finland’s armed citizens who were also skilled outdoorsmen and hunters, traveling long distances on skis and employing Mosin-Nagant rifles which were similar to the 30.06 rifles deployed by the Americans and interchangeable with the weapons that the Finns picked up after ambushing Soviet troops in the snowy forests of Finland.