More notes from the American shooting gallery: another group of kids who will look like they had no idea that something like this was even possible…the media will be dumbstruck before the hot camera lights like an animal into headlights at night…they’ll talk about every detail of the attack: the killer chose to wear all black, how there was a vacant look on his face, how he might have thought he was the Joker in the new Bat Man movie, how no one seemed to really know him. It was all so senseless; and yet it seemed to make perfect sense as the last half a dozen time the same thing happened.
They’ll treat the killer like he is something other than one of us; when really his actions seems to make him more quintessentially American. And after each new massacre the conclusion has always been the same. There’ll be a moment hesitation as people sense the obvious our country is violent as hell and awash with too many weapons. The we’ll slip into our reflexive defensive mode that what our society really needs is more weapons? If more people were armed to teeth this never would have happened.
It’s like a society that keeps making the same mistakes again and again is too stupid to even consider trying something different. They’ll again go to the factors several time removed rather than considering our love affair with the most obvious. Was it the video games he played? Grand theft auto comes to mind. Was it the music he listened too? The ones with lyrics kill, kill, kill interspersed between every refrain. Was it the wars he watched? Including the drone strikes which have so much better graphic than most video games. Was it batman’s fault? The fact that the directors of these new superhero movies aren’t satisfied making just substandard movies they need to be substandard and worhip at the altar of our favored god: violence. Was it just his craziness? The American society does seem to have a knack of producing isolated, lonely, young men who want to be famous and are also armed to the teeth.
The one thing that can’t be responsible for this mass shooting was the people who helped keep automatic weapons so easily accessible - and don’t you dare politicize it - they‘re as American as apple pie or the second amendment of the constitution. One wonders what the founders would have thought when they saw people so set in their ways that they used the words of a two hundred year old document to stop people from solving their problems. The people who fought so hard to make sure that gunman was able to purchase a semi-automatic attack weapon, a police helmet, a bullet proof vest, protection for his chest and groin like his victims actually could have shot back. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. The one thing I know it wasn’t the NRA fault. Instead by the time the NRA gets finished spinning it, the gun control people will have more to do with the massacre than they will.
It’s incredible how many people in the theater that night were ex-military people. It’s incredible the anger that permeates through the society under the surface. It’s incredible the way the Americans settle for treating one another like crap. They’re kept poor, are fed the crappiest food (no regulation here), and watch the crappiest movies, because they really don’t deserve much more. Yet they’re told over and over how great they are and how the rest of the world is jealous; until they almost start believing it. At least every time there is a massacre for a moment somebody notices them and actually cares for a little while - at least until the next celebrity winds up in rehab.
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