Reason First: Could Reason, Purpose, and Self-Esteem Have Prevented it All?- The Brenda Spencer Murders

Before the ghastly acts at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Stoneman Douglass, among a whole host of others, there was the Grover Cleveland Elementary School shooting in San Diego, California on Monday January 29, 1979. The major difference between the aforementioned examples of scholastic carnage is that the perpetrator wasn’t a pimply faced twentysomething or teenage boy or boys.

The monster who carried out this ugly deed was a 16-year-old girl with bright red hair. She murdered two men and injured a policeman and eight children in the melee. Principal Burton Wragg aged 53, busied himself in protecting the schoolchildren and Spencer gunned him down for his efforts. Mike Suchar, 56, served as a lead janitor and attempted to aid the principal in guiding the children to safety when he became a fatality.

In a six-hour standoff with Spencer at her home across the street from the elementary school, she gave extremely blasé answers for the “reasons” why she committed such unspeakable evil. She said upon being prompted who she wanted to shoot that she “liked red and blue jackets.” This chilling indifference only matched another reply from Spencer when she said, “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day....I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun….It was like shooting ducks in a pond…[her targets] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings.” The lack of reason that she noted in her actions was telling. It showed that no spark of rationality remained in her mind.

This horrific line of “thinking” was actually ideation. Spencer had ideas that did not connect to reality.

The murder weapon, a .22 rifle equipped with a scope seemed to Brenda to be a gift from Father Spencer to kill herself with it. Brenda plead guilty to weapons charges and murder and assault. The judge sentenced her to 25 years to life where she is still serving time at the California Institution for Women.

What went wrong here? The detachment from all things rational led Brenda to do her worst. No unknown or unknowable force could have initiated or prevented this ugly chapter in American school history.

Brenda tried to make it seem as if being abused sexually and with drugs by her father gave her a license to squeeze the trigger at innocents from a rifle. Her absolute flat responses and complete disregard for human life point to a soul corroded by altruism.

She had no value for her own life and this projected on the victims that fell from her rounds. This unselfishness and sacrifice demonstrated a woman unhinged. Her life behind the wall could have been prevented.

Brenda could have delivered herself from the wickedness that propagated in her mind. All she had to do was to think of reason, purpose, and self-esteem. With the absence of these values which author and philosopher Ayn Rand called “cardinal” to her morality of Objectivism, a full, flourishing life is impossible. Once an individual integrates these values, they have the opportunity to lead selfish, profound and happy lives.

Brenda wanted none of that. She viewed herself as the agent of death and destruction at just sixteen-years-old. With her poor attitude, Brenda showed herself to be an irrational, puny creature who could not explain her urges and work to untie the knots of discord resting in her spirit.

What is so terrible is that two men had to die and more injured because of Brenda’s toxic mindstate. But as she still sits behind barbed-wire fences, she must wrestle with the vicious acts that she executed against people just trying to start the work week.

While this case has inspired a song written by Bob Geldof, books, and a few television specials, it should always be remembered for the disgusting acts of Brenda Spencer.