After a gunman opened fire on campus at Northern Illinois University, many members of the campus and surrounding community were left baffled and shocked.

The shooter killed six people, including himself. No solid motives have been determined, and the community of NIU, in general, is in utter confusion over why their campus had to endure such tragedy.

My question is why. I don’t understand why people feel the need to harm others if they are just going to end their life anyway. Why is the need to bring others misery and pain so great if you don’t even intend on living to see their suffering?

I’m not condoning hurting innocent people if you have plans to stick around and see the aftermath, but it is really bothersome that these people who shoot up schools and churches and university campuses have such desire to harm people whom they probably have had little to no contact with.

What kind of gratification do these shooters get from their actions? Do they do these awful acts so that it is easier for them to end their own lives? Do they think they are in competition with others who have committed equally as heinous acts before them? Do they really not understand the severe emotional impact they are bringing to the community in which they are harming?

To me, these acts can be interpreted as pure selfish. Not only do these people get their own life, but they get the lives of their victims, their victims’ family and friends, and the community as a whole. They get the emotions, the pain, the tears, the fear and the heartache.

These people who claim to hurt others in retaliation to wrongs that have been committed against themselves do not seem to realize that they are no better than the ones who have hurt them.

It is so frustrating because these people want sympathy and understanding for doing the horrible things they do. They think they deserve these feelings for being wronged and hurt. How can we give sympathy when these people go out of their way to harm loved ones and peers?

Maybe my feelings are insensitive, and maybe I am wrong in assuming that these people do not have a legitimate motive for harming innocent people. However, I cannot condone the fact that a person would go out of their way to harm many people just to kill their own self in the end.

This is just one opinion; let me know your take on this issue.