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Saturday, October 14, 2017

Shock, Anger and Dismay! Why?






On October 1st, 2017 a psychopath killer raised the bar to at least 58 killed and more than 500 injured in one event. In the field of mass killings the next one will have to be creative to be able to top that. The chilling thing is we know that right now, someone is thinking in just such terms.

Now authorities are searching for a motive. Here are two reasons why he did what he did, no matter what other reasons might turn up. He committed this unspeakable act because, simply put, he could. He was able to afford to buy the 47 guns he owned and all the ammunition, and because he could afford to rent the suite at the hotel. This may not sound like a motive, but it just might be the only reason he did it.  It is difficult to understand why a millionaire white American man would actually want to kill his fellow Americans with such total abandon, but he could do it, so perhaps he did it to make the name for himself as the darkest killer of all time on American soil.

He also knew that the nation would be shocked, angered and dismayed by his actions and they would all know his name because his co-conspirators, the police and the media would see to that. However, Fareed Zakaria, the noted CNN broadcaster devoted a full hour’s programme to the LA shootings and steadfastly refused to mention the name of the shooter because he would not cooperate with the man’s expectation to have his name publicised. Hooray! Fareed, you got it! Hopefully this is the thin edge of the wedge and the rest of the media and the police will follow your lead.

We, the public do not need to know the name of the perpetrator. To us it is not important but to him it might be the most important reason for committing the act in the first place as being his 15 minutes of fame.

This man committed an act of terror that was no different than if he was a so-called ISIS fighter, and he deliberately thought his actions through with very meticulous planning. We really have to correct the saying that “not all Islamists are terrorists, but all terrorists are Islamists.” That was never correct, not since the Texas tower shootings way back in the mid-‘60s. The man who brought down the Oklahoma City building was as American as apple pie.

The irony is that it is reasonable to assume that a lot of the Country music fans that were either killed or injured were likely gun lovers as well. How tragic to be caught in a killing field where the rain was deadly fire from the guns you dearly loved.

The real problem I have with this incident, and all the other mass shootings that evoke the same shock, anger and dismay is that after the Sandy Hook shootings, by an American white boy that took the lives of so many very young children, absolutely nothing was done against gun ownership, so in my way of thinking that rules out shock, anger and dismay for all future acts of gun violence.

A gun is manufactured for one reason. That is to turn something living into something that no longer lives. The proper use of a gun is to do just that. In a comparison with Japan in 2015, there was one act, only one person died from gun violence compared with about 4000 in the U.S.  Clearly this is a matter of mindset.  Gun ownership and gun use in Japan is unpopular. In the United States the very opposite is the case. Not only are the 3% of Americans who own most of the guns in America largely accepting of ownership they also seem to have a pre-disposition to use them against other Americans. That is where change has to start, in the hearts and minds of those who are so crazy about their guns.

There is a school of thought that holds that if everybody owned and carried a gun no one would start shooting. No-one, that is, except somebody who would like to start an all-out massacre just for the fun of it. I hope there is nobody who thinks this could not happen.

You have met the enemy America, and the enemy is you! In the first 265 days of this year there were 263 acts of mass murder committed in the country.

You have the problem and you have the solution. Now it is up to you. Please don’t tell me that you will be shocked, angry and dismayed when the next bigger event comes along.



Copyright © 2017

Eugene Carmichael