The US 'suffered' another mass shooting last week. In their penchant for such things, it was described as 'the single greatest mass-killing by a lone gunman in US history'. While it may be one for the record books, it is not a singularity in US history, nor is it probably THE ultimate. For along with the normal three-day hoo-haw about 'who dunnit' and the seven-day mourning period for the victims, this incident is no different from any of the others - in that the essential condition which gave rise to it - the 'right' to bear some heavy-duty firepower - runs on, untroubled, to the gun shops and shooting ranges. The US Senate refused to impinge, even slightly, on America's 'Gord-given' right to have an arsenal at home.
Perhaps obfuscating any change were the details. While the Americans killed were possibly a cross-section of normal Americans, they didn't represent many of the true believers who hold America's best interests hostage to their own. They were for the most part gay, and for the other part largely Hispanic. The shooter himself is being told-off - aside from the blatted 'pledging of allegiance to ISIS' - as a possible self-loathing sodomite, or someone unlucky in that kind of love and looking to take a 'harem' with him. He certainly succeeded killing and wounding well over 150 people in a two hour period when he wasn't holed up in a toilet, or trying to get through to 911. One has to wonder what his 'load out' was, as he walked, or flew, or morphed past the off-duty officers on duty as security guards. Something went-off the rails there, for not only did he have a long gun, a pistol and a knife, he also had a significant amount of ammunition. And we're told he'd bought it all only days before. And he carried it all, unremarked, into a closing time crowd.
SWAT squad load-out. The battle of The Pulse
It's sad, really, that the shooting is remarkable only for a spate of the standard 'bolshoi' that seems to be the 'blffftsplk cloud' around all such sad events.
First there was the saga of the authorities having had him 'on their radar' but not being able to 'get the goods on him', or stop him. His wife is facing charges of failing to stop him because she failed to notify authorities that she had been trying to talk him out of something that might have involved his new guns - if she knew about those. But when we hear about some of the 'terrorists' that authorities did stop, one has to wonder if they aren't relying far too much on paid informants and mapping-out their own 'terror scenarios' to entrap some poor schmuck into doing them?
Nine terrorists who were stopped.
Then there are the knee-jerk reactions and generalized stupidity that follows such outrages. Somebody had his bank account frozen after after writing his dog's name 'Dash' on a cheque to the dog-sitter. Either the dog-sitter has a threatening Arabic name, or somebody at Chase Manhattan was in 'Dwight Smoot' mode and thought he had meant to write 'Daesh'.
Puppy dog tales
In an even more humorous anecdote Homeland Security got involved when somebody created a money transfer to a buddy to pay for a night out and memorandized it with the guilty phrase "ISIS beer funds". Obviously that electronic communication was flagged in some 'trapment warehouse' and along with the nude selfies, 'sent up' for the attention of operatives with better skill sets. This was the sort of thing that, possibly, 'soured' Snowden on America, one might imagine, but the official follow-up was the work of morons and a waste of valuable security resources - considering a real terrorist shot up a gay bar and killed 70 people. .
This Bud's 4 U
And then there's that need to take some action. If you can't shut down a gun shop, or 500, well you can stop them jihads sending messages that make people want to grab an assault rifle and a passel of ammo and go wreak a cowardly killin' somewhere. Facebook and Twitter are to blame for wrecking America if the 'Allahu Akbars', 'salaam''s and 'inshallah''s aren't curtailed.
Cutoff my nose to spite my face.
And lastly, a truly sad commentary on the effects of it all. This story is about a 3 year-old practicing her 'lock down' skills - hiding in the bathroom and acting out what she might need to do if a bad man with a gun came to her school - stand on the toilet so he can't see your feet when he looks.
Peek a boo. Bang!
What's interesting is the response to the story. Practical suggestions for further training for a wide array of emergencies at school and elsewhere. The standard 'bleeding heart' criticism of the anti-gun population. Even a reminder that sanitation is important when hiding from a gunman. I'm surprised that nobody mentioned good etiquette. There were reminders of how effective armed teachers might be - they'd certainly get those drills down pat ( Mr. Woloshowinsky will be pretending to be the shooter to-day - his gun will remain unloaded.) . Somebody recalled the good old days when hiding under a desk wasn't really going to save anyone from a nuclear bomb, (nobody wanted to frighten the kids by telling them that) . But it was used to do something in kids about 'Russians'. A fear that many still hold in their essential being to this day and transfer, ever so easily, to whatever boogey-men are selected for their paranoic consideration.
As long as somebody suffering some delusion, or a bigger hate, has access to a gun, kids in schools - or people in churches , theaters, libraries or simply on the street are still going to get shot in America the Armed.
It's like dogs biting people - we'll ban breeds one by one, up the fines and punishments - but we won't make the beggars, all of them, wear a muzzle if they're out in public. Like muzzles on all dogs the answer to gun violence in America is glaringly obvious too.
No guns, no gun violence.
