The Amish School Shooting

Reflecting on the recent massacre in an Amish school in Pennsylvania, Warren Kinsella writes:

“What has feminism made me think about? In the past 24 hours, mainly about pure expressions of evil, like this. And how the common denominator always seems to be the same: violent men. Men attacking, or killing, or hurting, women. Over and over and over.”

He represents this as a personal reaction, not an established fact. But is it really true? Is violence by men against women the story of our times, or all times?

Isn’t it bosh, and isn’t it dangerous, malicious bosh? Isn’t it on the same level as “Jews poisoning, cheating, or swindling Christians. Over and over and over”?

Any quick check of crime stats shows that violence by man against women is only a small proportion of violence committed. Violence by men against men is far more common. Violence by men against women is the shocking exception. Shocking enough to get big play in the papers. It is on the order of “man bites dog.”

Okay, so violence by men against women is actually quite rare. The more common thing is violence against men. But it is still men committing the violence, right? Isn’t it at least fair to say that men are more violent than women, and that without men around, violence against women would be even less?

Probably not. Many studies have now shown that, in domestic situations, women are just as likely to be violent towards their partners as men. This probably accounts for the vast majority of “violence against women.” There is no reason to suppose that violence outside domestic situations is different; apparently men are no more violent towards women than women are towards men.

But even that is not the whole story. Kinsella, as a good Catholic, should not forget about abortion. Is that not violence of the most extreme kind, and is that not violence done by women? Add in these numbers, and all of the following statements are obviously true

1) women commit more violence than men;
2) women commit more violence against men than men do against women;
3) women commit more violence against women than men do.

This is true with unrestricted abortion. But even before legal abortion, abortion and infanticide was apparently fairly common. My wife, who grew up in the Philippines where it has always been illegal, says abortion there is nevertheless almost routine. And, when discovered, largely unpunished.

So Kinsella’s notion, and that of feminism generally, that men are somehow intrinsically violent towards women, is based on a profound sexism: if women do it, we don’t define it as violence. Women, to put it bluntly, have a license to kill.



And now, may I take this opportunity to give my own reflections on the Pennsylvania case?

The motive seems to have been sexual: the murderer-suicide was apparently haunted by desires to sexually assault young girls. It looked like the whole point of the exercise was to do this, but he panicked or lost his nerve or ran out of time. He was ready to both kill and die to fulfill this unnatural desire.

That early sex experience, then, must have held incredible power over him.

Doesn’t this illustrate graphically the folly of our current permissiveness towards premarital sex? What he did, he seems to have done at the age of twelve. These days, it is apparently very common for twelve-year-old girls to be sexually active.
If early sexual experiences are indeed that powerful, if they can imprint a person that strongly, it would certainly be wise to stay well away from them. Lives could be in the balance. It is surely reckless then to simply drop your knickers for the first boy or girl who shows interest.

Moreover, if the first sexual experience so imprints us, or even if it so imprints just a few of us, then it makes the most sense to reserve all sex for the confines of marriage. Otherwise one could be left with a craving that can never, throughout life, be fulfilled—because that first sex partner, to whom one has bonded, is long gone.


We used to understand this very well. We used, for example, to believe that fetishes in general were caused by early sexual experiences. Including homosexuality.

Surely this, on the evidence of the Pennsylvania case, is indeed sufficient to explain for the phenomenon. One early sexual encounter with a fellow man or fellow woman; and some people might be, like this man, imprinted for life.

By contrast, the currently popular explanation, that homosexuality is inborn, faces a serious logical problem: since homosexuals do not breed, old Darwin’s random God should have seen them and their genes packing within a generation. Even women with any genetic predisposition to gay children would have lost, over time, in the survival stakes.

But then, it would be highly politically incorrect to suggest that homosexuality might be contagious. Or that premarital sex is a very bad thing.

No, the lesson drawn by the powers that be will be something different. There will be more money for feminist causes, more laws discriminating against men, and more restrictions on guns.

And more children shot.