The story of the movie theater shootings in Colorado has dominated the news today. I don't know what I might say that hasn't been said repeatedly, but I will add a few thoughts.
As always, when one of these mass shooting incidents occur, I can't help but hope that the perpetrator is not one of our folk. I am so weary of the constant drumbeat by the media against the 'gun-crazy White psychopath' or 'extremist'. I know that such people do exist, but if we look back at such incidents in recent years, there have been a great many 'diversity' shootings. Those, however, seem to be treated as one-off events by the media, despite their increasing frequency.
We don't know much about who this shooter is at this point. Some are eager to call him a 'WASP, because his surname is Holmes, but surnames can be deceiving. Still, we know that crimes like this are not the sole province of White guys, regardless of what his pedigree proves him to be.
The media, ever eager to be the 'first', wrongly tried to associate the shooter with the Tea Party -- which is hardly an 'extremist, far right' group in any case; more like an sctual Tea Party, genteel and harmless, and by the way, the 'Tea Partiers' are not racist. They want you to be sure of that fact.
I rather doubt that this accused man will be found to be a 'right-winger' of any sort; if he's political at all, he will likely be left-wing, even if in a vague sort of way, as is common among his age group. This is just my gut feeling.
As to the actual shooting incident, I was disturbed in reading several of the news accounts in which witnesses described the scene, and mentioned that many people seemed to flee haphazardly, leaving their neighbors -- and even family members -- behind. One such story (which I cannot find just now) mentioned a baby being left behind by a parent. What kind of people would do such a thing? Granted, not everyone can be a hero, but there is a bare mininum standard of human decency that seems not to have been met in some case. I'm distressed by that.
And maybe this is a trivial point to some, but the fact that so many of these people were avid to see this movie that they took infants, toddlers, and young children, in the middle of the night, to sit through this thing.
The content of the movie, as I've read of it, is disturbing and should not be fare for children. Period. But this media addiction that is so rife in our society makes people place seeing the latest hit movie above all other priorities. One couple (with children) had said they had looked forward to this movie for months. It seems to me that some priorities are very skewed.
The accounts of dead and dying people on the floors, and moviegoers stepping on bodies as they fled, are not pretty.
Am I saying 'society' is responsible for what happened? No; ultimately individuals are responsible but the depravity of popular media and the desensitizing that it fosters, plus the obsessiveness of its fans, are a big problem.
Meanwhile, here's something to keep in mind: the upcoming vote on the UN Arms Treaty. How convenient that this incident happened; what a lucky coincidence for the anti-gun faction. Now the calls for abolishing our Second Amendment rights (as per the wishes of the overbearing UN) are increasing.
Thoughts?
