A letter to David Hogg

March 28, 2018

David Hogg

Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School

5901 Pine Island Road

Parkland, Florida  33076

Dear Mr. Hogg,

You are currently in possession of a highly valuable but fungible commodity.  You have the attention of the media, a long list of politicians, and much of the American public.

Thus far, media reports indicate that this attention is focused exclusively on how Nikolas Cruz and so many others like him were able to commit their crimes.  Entirely ignored is the question of why they even wanted to commit those crimes in the first place.

I’ve been asking why since before Luke Woodham shot several of his classmates in Pearl, Mississippi on October 1, 1997 and most of the time I’ve encountered some combination of avoidance, ridicule, and hostility.  On those rare occasions when a discussion is begun, it tends to be dominated by those who display an almost pathological need for a simple minded, single point of failure explanation, usually an explanation designed to end the discussion quickly.  Attempting to maintain a meaningful discussion of why appears to be very much like attempting to discuss alcohol abuse in a textbook alcoholic family.  It makes everyone very uncomfortable.

After more than twenty years of this, I’ve come to believe there are few limits to what people are willing to say or do in order to avoid any serious discussion of why our society produces so many young males who want to commit mass murder.

Are you different?  Do you believe that asking why, and expecting a rational response is a reasonable and important step toward addressing the fundamental problem?  Are you willing to begin asking why before the public’s attention begins to drift in another direction?

Regards,

Benjamin Demille

cc:      Rachel Maddow

Ari Melber

Principal Ty Thompson

Melissa Falkowski

Bill Maher

Governor Rick Scott

Senator Marco Rubio

Diane Ravitch

David Berliner

I've been sending letters like this one off and on for more than twenty years and the one subject of discussion that people avoid like poison is why our society produces so many people who want to commit mass murder.  How they are doing it is an acceptable subject of discussion.  Why they want to slaughter people is avoided.

Why is that?