Extenuating Circumstances
The difference between a charge of first-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter will often depend upon extenuating circumstances. Extenuating circumstances are routinely introduced into criminal charges, but they are not applied equally. If a battered wife shoots her husband to death, then the abuse she received at the hands of her husband are likely to be introduced as circumstances which do not absolve her of guilt but warrant a less serious criminal charge for the homicide. That a school shooter like Peter Houghton should be charged for committing the crime is beyond doubt, but by making what led Peter to act upon his revenge fantasies an integral part of the story, the novel introduces an element suggesting even in the most heinous of crimes there are levels of extenuating circumstances. The novel implicitly asks whether a school shooter who was mercilessly bullied receive the same judicial treatment as a kid who only opens fire on black students or Muslim students in a more clearly defined hate crime.
Righteous Vengeance or Psychopathic Vigilantism?
Is Peter the opposite of Batman? Batman is celebrated as a crime-fighting seeker of justice even though he acts outside the boundaries of the law in a way consistent with any other person conducting vigilante justice. When distilled to its barest essentials, a substantive argument can be made that Peter’s atrocious violent mass murder is an also really just act of vengeance that targets “bad guys” who make school miserable for the weak. The extenuating circumstances related to Peter’s victimology also raises the important question of where the line can be drawn between righteous justice and self-serving vigilantism.
Gun Control Begins at Home
Several high-profile cases of gun violence in America are paralleled with the fictional story of Peter Houghton to reveal how stricter gun control legislation might not be required if parents would just take the slightest steps to do it themselves. In light of so many infamous cases where the weapon used by teenage shooters were legally purchased and brought from their own homes, the scene in the basement where Peter discovers his father cleaning a Remington 721 is chillingly iconic portrayal of this theme in action. His dad asserts that Peter needs to learn how to respect guns if he plans on using them, but respecting guns also means respecting the laws governing their purchase and use, and, perhaps even more so, respecting plain common sense. The scene in the basement strongly suggests that Peter’s father holds moral complicity if not legal complicity for his son’s murderous rampage. The theme of common-sense gun control continues to be one that impacts the real world every single day in America.
