Harry Potter causes more school shootings?
Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Loganville, GA, is on a quest to get the Harry Potter books on the banned list allegedly arguing that they promote the Wiccan religion and violence.
She inherently believes that Harry Potter promotes evil and is responsible for the rash of deadly assaults at schools during the last two weeks. The wizard books would promote a decadent culture where school shootings happen.
Of course, she reasoned that reading the Bible would not cause any problems. She even stated that children would be unable to differentiate reality from fantasy. Plus it is unsuitable for children to "cast" spells and imitate Harry Potter in class.
This is Mallory's second public campaign against the popular fiction series after trying to do so back in August 2005.
The Gwinnett County Board of Education responded that banning Harry Potter would also include other well known books such as "Macbeth" and "Cinderella."
Daily Mail - 'Ban Harry Potter or face more school shootings'
Update 10/05/06
The Board of Education of Georgia will conduct a hearing over the Harry Potter books after Mallory's appeal. At every level of the school process, her request to have all Harry Potter books removed was denied. The case will be ruled in December.
Comments
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: October 4, 2006 01:01 PM
"promote the Wiccan religion?" Not the Wicca I know! When this idiot dies, she's going to have a long talk with Jesus about how she discredited Christianity, and I'm sure she'll find it quite uncomfortable. As for school shootings...how can you pin Nickel Mines on Harry Potter? I want to know if the perp in that one was on psych meds (like almost all other school shooters).
Posted by:
Posted on: November 2, 2006 03:13 PM
thats stupid
Posted by: Lacie
Posted on: November 13, 2006 12:39 PM
I think you need to take a look at a wiccan book or someting. Wicca gets a bad rap bcuz of the bad people who practice it. It is just like any other religion in the fact that every religion has its good and its bad. As for the shootings there is no way Harry Potter could even romotly have the effect on kids that you are implying. America is the problem. They need to take the blame instead of blaming perfectly innocent and entertaining things. If you blame Harry Potter why don't you blame the media, they are the one's that show gory violence every couple of minutes everyday. It's not right to blame things that have no effect on the problem just bcuz you are trying to find the cause, look around it's the way adults act that cause all or most of the violence influences on kids. Not the books they read
Posted by:
Posted on: November 13, 2006 02:43 PM
Jeffery, you are assuming Christianity is the only right religion?
Posted by:
Posted on: April 20, 2007 03:14 PM
The point of the Wiccan religion is to be nice to all things. How many of the people that caused school shootings were Wiccan? I mean really, Harry Potter isn't even really about witches and warlocks anyway, that is just the back drop. It is a story about a kid that doesn't belong anywhere and all he needs to go on is a couple of loyal friends.
Posted by:
Posted on: May 5, 2007 08:17 PM
wow that lady realy has nothing better to do with her time and the fucking bible is violent as hell i not in to the harry poter books but theres nothing wrong with them
Posted by:
Posted on: July 27, 2007 12:18 AM
Lemme clarify something. Wicca is not everything's nice all the time. There is a darker side of it too. BUT threefold law is like karma. You screw someone, you're gonna get screwed. Maybe not tomorrow, but somewhere down the line.
Anyways, if Harry Potter causes school shootings, does Jackass cause frat parties, and the evening news cause rape and murder?
Posted by: Wandlore
Posted on: August 23, 2007 12:01 AM
Wow! what a heated debate!
overall a very interesting blog you wrote here! Keep posting so that people would have a lively discussions!
Thanks
Posted by:
Posted on: October 17, 2007 02:46 PM
how can harry potter be causing school shootigns i mean harry potter doesnt even have anythign to do with shooting it has to do with magic but not shooting and most of the shooter probably didn't even watch harry potter before or tried and failed at trying to watch the rest of it!!!!!!!! plus i've watch harry potter and it is not violent and it is not cruel or anything bad i think that it is one of the best movies out there!!!!!
Posted by: L K Tucker
Posted on: December 12, 2007 02:42 PM
Several school shootings contain evidence that Subliminal Distraction exposure caused the event.
SD was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers in the 1960's. The cubicle was designed to deal with normal features of the physiology of sight and the mental breaks stopped where they are correctly used.
It has not occurred to anyone that this is a problem of human physiology not office design. If you create the "special circumstances" of those 1960's failed workstation designs you will have the same outcomes.
The Virginia Tech shooter did that when he used the suite common room to study with his laptop. He learned to ignore other suite-mates walking beside him. But we cannot control the subliminal brain system that detects threat movement in peripheral vision and attempts to trigger the startle reflex.
Over time the constant subliminal detection of threat movement colors thought and reason. We all saw the paranoid psychotic rant Cho video taped.
Harry Potter books could only supply this stimulus if someone attempts to read them in a location where others walk close beside their position.
Posted by:
Posted on: March 7, 2008 09:55 AM
how can harry potter cause school shootings? I mean it really dosen't make any sense. HP is about fighting evil not promoting it
Posted by:
Posted on: March 1, 2009 10:48 PM
GET OFF THIS WOMAN'S CASE!!! Books are a part of the media, and if you are gonna blame the media, then you have to blame books too!