What bothers me about the conversation on shootings is the need to either complicate it or manipulate it to fill a political end.
Two points, one, violence is not complicated, not at its core. It is basic physics with moral implications. One force (the gunman) is either met with resistance or it isn’t. The end result is a loss of life the extent of which is based entirely on how effective the opposing force is.
There’s your “complicated” scenario.
Two. I haven’t said this in a while, but evil is universal. Talking about a motive or some other political thing like “well he supported Trump” or some crap like that solves nothing. Looking at the shooter’s race says nothing (for V-Tech, the LAPD guy or the dude from El Paso.). It serves no purpose than for a particularly unctuous sect of the country to say “you support X, so obviously you must be fine with this.” As if the average Joe supports people being killed because people share some political beliefs.
Let me give to you a breakdown of this. Statistically, the majority of mass shooters are white, the majority of gang violence is black or hispanic, and the majority of terrorism is Muslim. What do you get from these three points, looking at it strictly from a racial point of v that is in anyway useful and inoffensive?
Nothing.
You get absurd propositions that accuracy is dependent on skin color and location. White people are more likely to be more accurate indoors, black people are more like to be accurate outdoors and terrorists use trucks and bombs so accuracy isn’t on the agenda (though it must be said that mass shooters and gangsters seem to be lousy shots thankfully.)
You also miss that part about “the majority” of X is Y. “The majority” is not “all”. Which means that “The majority” of a different category also has “members” (for lack of ANY better word, I am so sorry) committing other acts. Political violence of all stripes, there are multiple minority mass shooters in the last few years, and the FBI reports a growing Caucasian population in gangs.
You then come to my conclusion. Evil. Is. Universal. This ex post facto crap about their race or their political affiliation is a smokescreen. It will not prevent the next attack. It only serves to further divide the country.
The truth is, my checklist is the best way forward. These people choose gun free zones, with no to minimal security, have a personal motive, are not mentally ill, they likely don’t have a criminal record and they don’t have some neon sign going “I am going to kill tens of people”.
If you want to have an honest discussion about this, stop getting emotional about it and stopping at the emotion. Turn the event itself into a case study. What WAS the security like in there? What WAS the response time? How effective were the police? Were there any security measures? Those are more important questions than his race or who he claims to support.
Finally tonight 