What they don't get is that we have laws aplenty for controlling firearms. The problem is the bad guys ignore the laws. If the bad guys don't pay attention to the law, how will passing another law or another boatload of laws change anything? It won't. The bad guys will still get guns and will still go out and do bad things.
My attitude toward this stuff is that the bastard who was one of those perps who was shot to death and lay on the street for a couple of hours got precisely what he deserved. I'm pleased to know that the other one died, too. Now at least the taxpayers don't have to support either of them while they wait for their trials, pay for the trials and then pay to keep them in jail until they die of old age.
To say I hate people who do stuff like this is a gross understatement. If you deliberately and knowingly do harm to another human being you are not worthy of living. Period, end of story. And if anyone finds that unpalatable, tough.
Society is forgiving. We have laws that create borders and bounds and living within them really isn't that hard. 99.9% of humanity manages it quite well every single day. It comes down to basic decency: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's simple. Play nice, play by the rules and all will be well.
It's that other 0.1% who cannot live within the rules and who, in my opinion, don't deserve to be here.
Now I know the bleeding hearts will wring their hands - for all the good that will do for the fourteen families who lost loved ones yesterday, or the three who lost family members last Friday in Colorado Springs, or those one-hundred thirty-nine families who lost loved ones in Paris a few weeks ago, and all the others down the decades.
Is just one of these bastards worth that? No. A resounding NO.
With all of that said, I am sick and tired of the same whining from the left about guns and gun control. I have said it before: what's needed is widespread education about guns and gun safety.
Beyond that, aside from that is what is behind this stuff?
Of that 0.1% who do stuff like this, I think about 99.9% are rational. They know what they're going to do, but don't care. They don't care because they think, probably truly believe, that once they commit the act, they'll get away with it. But what if these vermin knew they might be walking into a place where other people have guns? What if they thought, beforehand, that maybe, just maybe, a few of the people they're targeting might have guns, too? Is it possible they might think twice? I don't think they go in planning to die for whatever cause they think they're advocating. I think they honestly think they'll get away with it.
Another thing that I think is behind this kind of stuff, or if not directly behind it at least alongside it, are the really graphic, violent movies and video games that are so prevalent now. If you see someone blown up, shot, dismembered, eviscerated, or whatever again and again and again, probably thousands of times, it can't help but desensitize you. Your humanity leaks out, a little at a time, because it's not real. If you die in one of those games, your character gets back up, dusts themselves off, and gets to it again. Don't you think that warps reality just a little?
Then, at some point, for some small percentage of gamers, that adrenaline rush just isn't there anymore. They miss it and, of that small percentage, another offshoot decides or chooses to get that rush again - by taking it to the next level.
Look at things like Black Ops and the other graphic shooter games. How many thousands of times do gamers shoot and kill "people" in the video games they play? This is just more intense.
Shooter games are everywhere these days and so are these shootings. Gee, ya think there might be a link?
How many mass shootings were there in America in the 1960's? How about the 1970's? I went to Wikipedia and searched for mass shootings. America is not alone in this - most countries have had at least one in the past century. Most of have several - even in places where guns are banned (which points to gun bans not working, doesn't it?). Here's what I found have happened in the United States*:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings
The table I've presented here is only for the United States. Take a look at that. Do you see a pattern? Do you see the increasing occurrence of these events year over year since the 1990s when shooter video games first started gaining popularity? I'm not saying that all of these are strictly attributable to video games and gamers, but it is interesting to note that since the 1990s the rate of mass shootings has accelerated.
So - the two perps from yesterday ended up dead, which is the best possible state for them. Sadly, fourteen other people were killed and those fourteen families are grieving today. Those people left behind have no recourse, nothing to put an end to the pain of losing their husband or wife or son or daughter or brother or sister or mother or father or... The other people who were there are probably wondering 'why them and not me?' and beginning the early stages of survivor's guilt - the hopeless round of 'they didn't deserve to die, it should have been me'.
I'll say it again: I think we need more gun education in this country, that firearms in the hands of the sane and rational can be good things, and that we really need to investigate the link between violent video games and movies (like the slasher movies that are so popular among the teens and twenty-somethings), and what happens in real life. I doubt there is no link to be found.
In the meantime, watch your back and be safe!
Best~
Philippa
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