Red fury of juvenile shooter

“Colour is the mother tongue of the subconscious,” Carl Jung famously said. The Swiss psychiatrist was the first to develop art therapy using colours for his patients suffering from trauma. His theory is based on the use of four colours in a person’s daily life: fury red, sunshine yellow, earth green and cool blue.

Jung gives equal importance to each of these colours – and in true psychology speak they are not all positive. Red evokes anger, yes – but did you know that sunny yellow can irritate your eyes? Or that calming blue is also associated with sadness and aloofness?

ALSO READ: Two dead in shooting at US high school

Children generally prefer bright colours, Jung found, and don’t like brown, black or grey – but when they do choose them it indicates these children are suffering from depression.

Which makes me wonder what Jung would’ve made of the boy who shot his teacher in Virginia. She survived, but is now suing the school, claiming the authorities were warned three times that the boy was carrying a gun.

She was the first to tell school administrators the boy had threatened to beat up another child. Hardly an hour later, another teacher told them the boy apparently brought a gun to school but she did not see it in his bag and that he might have it in his pockets.

ALSO READ: Suspect, 15, in custody over latest US mass shooting

With a “the boy has little pockets”, one administrator dismissed the claim.

A third teacher then reported that another pupil, crying, told her he had seen the gun and the boy “threatened to shoot him if he told anybody”. Still no action was taken and a school employee was denied permission to search the boy.

The school felt “the issue could be left until the school day ends”. But before the end of the school day the boy pulled out the gun and intentionally shot and seriously wounded his teacher in a hand and her chest. He was only six years old… That, to my boggled mind, doesn’t even put him in “big school” yet.

ALSO READ: Five dead, two wounded in US shooting

He is in police custody “to help us best get services to this young man”, the police chief said. His family speaks of an “acute disability” and claims “that gun was secured”. Tell that to the teacher. And Jung. I think even he will despair.