U.S.A.– -(AmmoLand.com)- We saw two horrific examples of mass murder in the last few weeks. As usual, the initial news reports were wildly wrong. The initial reports claimed the attacks were by racist white men using assault weapons. They were wrong, but the false report served the political ends of the mass media and the politicians. The news reports deliberately failed to mention how the existing 20 thousand firearms regulations again failed to protect innocent people from violent attacks. Despite the shocking failure of gun-control laws, Democrat politicians called for more of the same.
Both politicians and pundits ignored the responses we know will reduce violent attacks. Unfortunately, the media and politicians are now part of the disease rather than being part of the cure to reduce mass public violence in the United States.
A murderer killed innocent women in Georgia. This murderer bought his gun legally.
He bought his gun through the same purchase process at a gun store that tens of millions of us use every year. The murderer used the same sort of handgun that millions of honest citizens use to defend themselves every year. In short, the murderer looked like us.
This murderer passed his firearms purchase background checks when he bought his handgun. He was not a prohibited person before he committed his attack. Background checks have not done much to stop mass murderers. Background checks look back in history and mass murder isn’t a repeat crime. Time after time, we’ve seen people who went on to commit mass murder pass their background checks.
It is uncomfortable to imagine that mass murder can look normal until he kills. It is uncomfortable to realize our gun-laws won’t protect us. This murderer didn’t bother to get his concealed carry permit because criminals don’t bother to follow gun-laws.
It would be nice if mass murderers were easy to identify ahead of time. They are not. They look like us and they act like us before they kill. They use the same firearms to harm others that we use to defend our families every day.
In Boulder, Colorado, a murderer killed innocent people in a supermarket. This murderer also bought his gun legally. He passed his background checks even though the FBI had a file on him. Like most mass murderers, and for the same reason, the murderer didn’t bother to get his concealed carry permit.
The grocery store this mass murderer attacked had a posted sign saying that customers should not carry firearms openly. A moment’s thought tells us that mass murderers won’t obey plastic signs. Again, honest citizens obey those gun-laws while murderers break the law. Gun-control may have disarmed the victims, but it did not stop violent criminals.
It is comforting to think a plastic sign saying “no guns allowed” will somehow keep violence away from us.
That comforting thought is dangerous because ink on paper doesn’t stop mass murderers. Prohibition may feel good but it is getting us killed from coast to coast, and time after time.
Prevention is hard. I’ve studied mass murderers for a few years and I could only find one small telltale sign in this murderer’s past. Team sports are usually an antidote to mass murder. You have to submit to a set of rules in order to play those sports. If you’re knocked down, you are expected to pick yourself up and continue to play the game. You are expected to win or lose, and to do so without blaming others.
This murderer was thrown off the high school wrestling team because of his violent temper. That is a small but telling fact. Unfortunately, failing at a team sport is too small of an indicator to think we can reliably detect mass murderers in the making. We’ll have to try something else.
Sadly, we’ve been here before. Despite the media hype, violence is not an epidemic in the United States. The slow and steady increase in mass public violence is caused by understandable and preventable forces.
Politicians talked about these murderers for hours on end. The media put the murderer’s name and face in the news for days. Effectively, the news media and the politicians gave the murderer a multi-million dollar publicity campaign. We’ve seen what happens next. That media-driven celebrity campaign attracts more broken people who will kill to be noticed.
That media-driven celebrity campaign attracts more broken people who will kill to be noticed.
Politicians don’t care. Republicans put forward an amendment to increase mental health funding after the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Democrats voted down that amendment. That happened two decades ago, but the facts haven’t changed. Healing the sick isn’t sexy and it doesn’t get a politicians’ name in the paper.
Mass murder serves the interests of the media and of anti-gun politicians. They won’t change their actions until we change them. You and I will have to defend ourselves in small ways until we cure the sickness in our government and in the press.
About Rob Morse
The original article is posted here. Rob Morse writes about gun rights at Ammoland, at Clash Daily, and on his SlowFacts blog. He hosts the Self Defense Gun Stories Podcast and co-hosts the Polite Society Podcast. Rob was an NRA pistol instructor and combat handgun competitor.
Collective guilt for individual acts. Straight out of the Communist play book.
“When the only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.”
All the Left have is a hammer.
” I have a gun. You want to take my gun. You can’t have it, your move.”
You forgot to mention the number of body bags to bring along!!!!!!!!
When government fears an armed citizenry it is because that government sucks at governing. Such is the case in most Progressive Utopias.
A simple truism: all the easy answers are already taken. It would also be nice to see some of this attention focused on the steady drip-drip-drip of blood almost daily in cities such as Baltimore, MD.
That would require the moral courage of critical thinking. Critical theory allows progressives and leftists off the hook on that one.
there is they blame the guns, not lack of good jobs and education no chemistry, psychics hell even shop classes are no longer taught. what job are these “graduates” qualified for ?????
That is so true, they graduate with no training to do anything, community college no training, then onto college and hopefully they might get some training to do something, but then comes the masters, but not all go that far, what happened to the trade schools of the past that put people into actual hands on work????????
Work? You want them to work? You are just being a silly. This morning I did my daily 7&1/2 mile 35 minute bicycle ride and at one housing site I was surprised. There was a young, late teen early twenties, female hispanic putting on a work belt with all the equipment that the guys had on. Skinny little thing too. She moved as if she had purpose. It made my day.
@swmft – Not true – or at least not universally true. While my kids did not take shop, their school had a fully functional automotive repair facility where kids could gain manufacturer certification as master mechanics.
More importantly the academic education was superb. Each of my kids graduated high school with two years worth of college credits – from history to math, physics, biology and chemistry.
But then I suspect you were talking about liberal utopias, which excludes not only my town but majority of my state. Thank God!
In my 9th grade shop class I, like a number of my classmates, made a three rifle gun rack. They all used mahogany wood. I had to be different. I used cherry wood. I regretted that decision. But, that gun rack is probably still being used by someone in Alaska 52 years after it was completed. Cherry is a very tough wood.
florida and a lot of other states have even removed cursive from the writing, if you cant read it they can tellyou what it says, where the liberals have taken over control of what is taught education is in the crapper , i am glad at least some kids are still getting an education. miami dade kids who want science or upper level math have to qualify for spots in the jr. collage
The Enemies Within.
Anti-Constitutionalist’s=Anti-Americans=Enemies of the United States…
Nothing more than regurgitated trash from the Joebama Administration Cabal.
Oath Breaking Career criminal politicians without anything useful or useable for the American public. They must be held accountable for their words and actions.
you’re absolutely right. Never let a crisis go to waste per Rahm Emmanuel and the left never let’s a crisis go to waste. They exploit anything, everything and everyone they can until they’re no longer useful. Look at how fast they tossed aside Cindy Sheehan once W was out of office. The left continues to exploit the murder victims every chance they get in order to push their evil agenda
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Weird how he slipped through the cracks. Clearly, we need to make it easier to report high risk people. Maybe an anonymous phone number to call in order to bring down the hell of government on anyone you don’t like. Judges and LEOs will rubber stamp and hut hut on anyone (other than other judges, other LEOs, politicians, and the people those groups like).
Making it easier may also make it easier to falsely claim someone should not be allowed to have a gun who is innocent and should be allowed to have a gun. Someone like a disgruntled, divorced, spouse or ex-girl friend.
That’s the joke.
I can’t slow down any further, this is as slow as I go. You’re going to just have to try and keep up.
It seems to me it’s the urban Democrats doing the majority of the shooting around the country.
Was that one the El Paso Walmart shooter?
Tragic as it was, there is a silver lining in that one it inspired Hispanics across the state to pursue training and LTCs. Once people getting into the armed lifestyle, they tend to stick and become ever more informed and politically active to protect their rights. I’d like to think that if anyone tried that again, they would be dropped within seconds.
“The FBI had a file on him” but didn’t report it, just like 9/11 !
The totalitarian Marxists can’t see pass their own failed agenda,afterall Leftardism is a mental disease.
I’ve noticed they have been publicizing them a lot more lately, for the reason you state. They have got to be pissed only one of the three they are focusing on really fit their narrative.
There have been 20 shootings that meet the definition of “mass shootings” in just Chicago so far this year. None of them have been reported on extensively by the national media. That’s because they provide information exactly contrary to the narrative.
Ask Sam.
Ha!
I was referring to Sam, the guy who posts on this board and who struggles with the fact that the homicide rate in certain Chicago neighborhoods is 10,000 to 15,000 percent higher than many areas of the country.
You mean that “black skinned” or “dark skinned” people did the killings?
It’s a mystery.
Unfortunately nobody can predict when somebody will have a mental breakdown and more gun laws won’t do that either . The gungrabbers love to use a tragedy to take rights from lawbiding people . Seems to me we need people to seek profession help and then we won’t need more useless laws .
@mm44m – Until red flag is thrown, it is usually not “too late”. By the time “red flag” action is complete, if they’ve survived the person of concern will have been violated and left to fend for themselves with whatever tool they still have. If they were unstable before, they are far more likely to do harm than before. If they were stable, but are vindictive then their accuser and LEOs involved need to watch their six. Strongly agree about the mentally ill. Not sure what Texas does different, but even in the sheltered life I lived in CA I… Read more »
Eleven years ago Arizona, more precisely the two big cities in Arizona Tucson and Phoenix, were quickly becoming the carjack and kidnap capital of the United States. Something had to be done and that was becoming more obvious each day. Consequently our congress passed and our governor signed into law a constitutional carry law making it legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit in Arizona. Almost overnight crime began a turn downward. We have always had open carry but that actually did nothing to avert crime. We also had at the time concealed carry with a permit. That too was insufficient because many Arizonans… Read more »
has anyone else noticed the pile of psychos that have crawled out of the woodwork since Biden took office?
“The murderer looked like us….” Good reason to further restrict and control people like us to not access guns. For those in Rio Linda, this is extreme sarcasm.
Does anyone research every contact these shooters have over the last couple years?? Wondering if there are Deep State operators in contact with the shooters along their way to evil….sorta managed, manipulated, nudged toward evil. Surely, our government operators would not have any hand in building, managing Useful Idiots public perception of the need for gun control,registration, confiscation. Naw, not our government.
They occur all the time. You are only looking at the ones you are told to look at. Don’t do that.
https://www.ammoland.com/2021/03/will-georgia-murder-spree-colorado-shooting-spawn-waiting-periods/#axzz6qovgTRGt
IIRC (and I think I do this time) a large contributing factor resulting in the tragic events of 911 was that the info WAS there but it was not being shared. A lot of that was due to institutional policies and fear of which agency and personnel were gonna get ‘credit’ for stopping the attack. Much the same attitude is still present in LE and security agencies. They still ignore the flip side – who will get blamed for the incident if it is allowed to happen. A lot of that finger pointing still goes on………….. Bottom line should NOT… Read more »
It seems there is one thing that almost all of these shooters have in common, and that is they were on the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies radar. Coincidence,I don’t think so! It seems that whenever there’s a push for illegal gun control the crazies come out, and the gov is aware.
@Ov; True, So true.
Yet the FBI KNEW about these TWO WANTON TERRORISTS BEFORE they KILLED Americans.
The FBI even allowed these MURDERS to purchase their guns “legally” without stopping, or flagging them.
Surprise —– Surprise !!!!!!!!!!!
It is a shame that the UNELECTED BUREAUCRATS at the “atf / batf / batfe’ have NOT PROSECUTED “Hunter Biden” for his LYING on his “4473”. YET, the bureaucrats and their sycophant actors are harassing Legal Law Abiding American Citizens whenever they FEEL they can “get-away-with” the prosecutions.
Hunter Biden MUST be Arrested, Charged, Prosecuted and Judged Judicially for his LYING on his 4473.
Also, if the rumor is true, Hunter Biden’s “mother” must be PROSECUTED for throwing Hunter’s pistol in a dumpster!