acceptance

You never know who might be behind the words out here in cyberspace. You never know why a person might be writing the things she or he is writing. You never know what your reaction may, or may not give to the writer.

This blurb is from an online article from a Denver news station. The story is about the gunman in the two shootings that happened in Colorado this past Sunday. Istre is the moderator of an online forum where Murray, the gunman, appears to have been a frequent contributor. Ultimately, this troubled young man did end of taking lives....but who knows how many more he would have taken how he not found acceptance amongst this anonymous online group:

"My reaction was disbelief, but then almost horror," Istre said of Murray's violence. "This guy was posting on our forums, and we are a support group out to help people, to try to get them to calm their fears and get them into a productive life. And here we are conversing with a dude who was a killer."
Ultimately, Istre said he believes the forum helped the 24-year-old man, and he doesn't know what more the group could have done to prevent the bloodshed.
"My gut instinct is that he was coming on our forums and posting all this stuff to provoke a negative reaction to where he'd be rejected again, so he can have another trophy, to say, 'I've been rejected by another organization, so here is my chance to strike back at the world.'
"I think in our organization he discovered an acceptance he probably never ran into."