Why does violence need a reason?

Like most people, I’ve been deluged with news about the shooting spree by Cho Seung-Hui at Virginia Tech. The key thing people seem to be talking about more than anything though is what was his reason/inspiration to go on this killing rampage. The media has tried to blame several things so far including video games and movies, but why does violence need a reason? Why can’t people accept that Cho may have just “snapped” mentally and killed those people for no real reason other than his own insane notions?

The reason is because people have a hard time thinking about random acts of murder. The mere idea of it scares the hell out of people because that means anyone at anytime could potentially be a murderer. The general public needs a reason so they can neatly categorize it in their minds as something that can’t happen to them or someone they love. Sadly this is just human nature… a defense mechanism if you will to help people sleep at night. Without this ability, you’d end up with people unable to function because they’re worried that someone could come kill them without notice (not that this can’t happen anyway but somehow we put that out of our minds). I say “without notice” because the media seems to think that since something is obviously causing these random acts of violence that we should be able to warn people against it if we could just find the “cause”. I don’t understand that personally but then again I’m a sane, rational person unlike most of the American population it seems. I know that some people are just wired wrong mentally and will do horrible things for no real reason. I know that bad things are going to happen to good people and we can do nothing to stop it sometimes. This is life… this is human nature. No amount of faith, science, or logic is going to keep that from happening. Sometimes violence just happens… no warning, no purpose, and no reason.