In regards to Tracy Hughes’ column of April 6:
You ask if there is a ‘killer gene?’ If so, then we all carry DNA directing us to kill other people. I’m quite certain everyone has ancestors who have killed. People have been killing people since the dawn of mankind. Hopefully some day all of humanity will honour the sacredness of life and stop killing each other.
Our genetic makeup is potential. We all have the potential to be saints or sinners. What we learn in our formative years makes the difference in behaviour.
The first eight years of a person’s life form the foundation of character, and the next eight years solidify the foundation. After the teen years, it requires a conscious determined effort to change.
When a child is subjected to violence, dehumanized by abuse, or observes brutality inflicted on others, they will grow up believing violence is normal adult behaviour. In the case of brutal rape and murder of a woman, no doubt the killer was taught that destroying a vulnerable female is manly and powerful. This is why it is so vitally important that child abuse and domestic violence be stopped. As the twig is bent, so the tree grows.
Morals, compassion and respect for life are taught; or not.
Your idea that murderers have defective DNA is an echo of the perverse “science” of eugenics propagated by Adolf Hitler. Before Hitler were the Europeans who came to this continent and declared the original inhabitants as “blood thirsty savages” who had to be eliminated.
The perverse elitist attitudes that claim some people have acceptable genes and other people don’t is the basis of genocide. The word genocide literally means murdering people because of their genes.
Killers are not born. Please cite your source that implies there is a killer gene. It sounds like neo-Nazi propaganda filth to me.
Kalene Bourque
