Readers React: An ancient lesson on stopping killers
Re “Inside the mind of an assassin,” Opinion, April 18
The history of delusional men enthralled by the fame they anticipate from murdering celebrities should give us all pause. Perhaps such horrific impulses could be defused by taking a cue from ancient Greece’s handling of Herostratus, a commoner who torched the fabled Temple of Artemis, thinking he would achieve everlasting fame.
Greece issued an edict providing the death penalty to anyone who ever mentioned Herostratus’ name. He soon was executed, leaving would-be Herostratus emulators dissuaded by the futility of trying to attain eternal fame by committing an atrocity.
Perhaps media reports on any future fame seeker’s murder of a celebrity or politician could withhold the killer’s name, as they now do with names of sex-crime victims who wish to remain anonymous. If that stratagem were diligently employed and widely publicized, proclivities to kill celebrities would surely diminish.
Betty Turner
Sherman Oaks
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