Now we know "who", without any doubt at all. Described by people who knew him as a loner, frightening, mentally unstable ... this was definitively a "nutter" without any of the political slant (not a "right-wing nut" or a "left-wing nut").
Our country is still reeling from shock. We are experiencing forms of PTSD: Fear, anger, loss, grief ... denial.
Some people have written on the Internet to express their feelings. Some have declined to even identify the terrorist (because that is what the attack is, by definition ... no apparent purpose except to to sew terror among innocents) and instead only write of their cold, implacable anger.
I, too, am angry. Angry because of the senseless loss of innocent life. In a very real way, except for the magnitude of damage done this is very similar to the 9/11 Massacre of Innocents. It is an arrow in the heart of a nation.
In 2007, when a nutter named Cho shot up the Virginia Tech campus, I cursed the nutter with a vehemence I have not often felt. Later, I thought I had over-stated my feelings. Now I feel the same sense of violation, and I discover that what I said then is exactly applicable now, also:
"You sociopathic sick fuck. I don't want to feel your pain. I just want you to be dead Dead DEAD for all eternity and may you rot in hell. I don't want to feel this angry toward another human being again."
But now I do. Perhaps you do, also. In a way, these terrible, predatory attacks bring out the worst in us.
The thing is, the "worst in us" all too often includes taking advantage for political gain.
POLITICS:
Since that terrible day, we've seen that a lot of people have taken political advantage of the situation to tout their own personal political kant.
"DAIRY of a Madman"? Not "Diary of a Madman"? That's right. In the current political milieu, the Left is milking it.
They're taken on two talking points.
First Amendment Infringement: There should be a law forbidding people to say naughty things about politicians. This isn't "hate crimes" (with which I already have a problem ... it's so subjective). It's chilling free speech.
Second Amendment Infringement: there should be a law forbidding people to have magazines that hold more bullets than they could possible need. Again, subjective.
Leave it to the Nanny Statists to "protect" us from ourselves. As Pogo use to say: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
I still feel bad about my own vehemence, but I feel even worse that there are people in this world who will gleefully twist a tragedy into an opportunity.
Yes, it's too bad that people often use intemperate language, and will apply invective ... I've just done that myself.
And it's too bad that people go mad, are so sick that they will shoot total strangers for no apparent reason except to indulge in their own vainglorious fantasy.
We're probably not going to be able to rid our society of either societal illness.
But it seems to me that we're losing sight of what's really important.
Here is an interview of the father of the little nine year old girl who was shot in the back. Can there be any worse thing to do to kill a child? A little girl .. .aren't we suppose to protect our children? And what can be worse than to lose your own child; that's not the way it's suppose to work. They should be mourning us, not the other way around.
This is heartbreaking. It's ten minutes of heartbreaking. It's almost unendurable, but if you have ever felt disgust at the expression "I Feel Your Pain", this may change your mind.
We see a father who is holding himself together with an inner strength that I doubt many of us would have the depths to call upon.
And in his grief, he still found one more iota of strength to say: This shouldn't happen in this country, or anywhere else, but in a free society we're going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative.
I would have preferred to present a much better organized .. expression. But this is the best I can do, right now.
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