On April 9, 2014, 16 year old sophomore Alex Hribal stabbed 21 students and a security guard in Murrysville, Pennsylvania at Franklin Regional High School. He is currently being held at the local prison on 4 counts of attempted criminal homicide, 21 counts of aggravated assault, and 1 count of carrying a weapon on school property. Hribal was charged as an adult and will not receive a preliminary hearing until April 30. Many speculate how a son (the younger of two) who was from a good neighborhood and family could commit such a terrible crime.
Video games and lack of weapon control seem to be the popular opinion for most to why the 16 year old decided to break out in a violent rampage. Both opinions, however, lack reasonability.
Video games, for instance, have ratings to help monitor which age group plays the games. The games are also just that...a game. A person decides for themselves what is morally wrong or justified so a video game could not control a person and force them to commit a crime, especially one as horrible as was committed today.
The other belief, that weapon control is to blame, is ludacris. Weapon control will be followed by those who are willing to obey the law. If someone sets out to harm a person, as Alex Hribal did today, than they will do it without regard to the law.
Citizens of Pittsburgh and the United States need to realize that pointing fingers is not the answer. A crime committed is a crime done by the accused, not by the public or the video game makers or the laws. Justification in this time of hardship may be the last thing people want to hear, but the one thing they may need to hear. Teaching of the wrong of violence can stop only those willing to listen and shielding eyes from seeing fake violence only makes the crime that much worse when it happens. Alex Hribal committed a crime that was terrible, and we need to open our eyes and realize that violence in inevitable and stopping it completely will only come by giving drive and determination to those willing to listen and maybe, just maybe, the world will finally see that a world without violence is a better one.