Another

     

        Another mass shooting that makes no sense. Except, this one might, if it turns out that the shooter was actually motivated by hate. In the era of a black president, can Americans still be motivated to kill each other based upon skin color? Apparently, one can.

        Some previous shooters have had a greater link to mental illness. But is racism a mental disease? Should it be? Certainly, the desire to kill someone because they look different has no logical rationale. Certainly, there were participants of past racial violence that shared the same fear, distrust, hate as yesterday’s shooter. And certainly, no one of that era would have suggested that they weren’t mentally ill, just good ol’ boys that went too far. Were they mentally ill then?

        With each mass shooting (how depressing to acknowledge more than one and suggest their regular occurrence), calls for a more universally armed public are heard.

“If only someone had a gun, he couldn’t have killed as many,” they’ll state with certainly. And, certainly, there have been people, mostly law enforcement officers, who have stopped a deadly encounter from expanding.

I believe that those on the left must agree to the possibility that this could happen. If everyone were armed, it would be very unlikely that one person could kill as many as they often (there again, how awful to write the plural) do. But the right has to agree that mass shootings would be replaced by many, many, smaller incidents of gun violence as angry individual have immediate access to a deadly weapon. Imagine every angry driver with the ability to express his anger with a gun and not just the car.

Another depressing thought about this terrible tragedy is the realization that there will be not solution devised in time to prevent the next one. One side wants more guns in more hands and the other side wants fewer guns in fewer hands. The other unanswered question is how many more will die? The number is unknown but not that fact that it will be a number. A large one.