My first thought when I heard the name of the male shooter in the San Bernardino massacre was of American Muslims across this country. My primary sympathy is for the victims and their families, but this incident is a disaster for the killers’ co-religionists, particularly in the midst of a political season that features major party candidates calling for registration of Muslims and attempting to incite blood vengeance for invented celebrations of the 9/11 attacks. I have to think that just about every practicing Muslim in America is cursing the name of this crackpot kid and his wife. In the current atmosphere, this could get very ugly.
Much as the press is obsessing over the terrorism / not-terrorism question, this is in essence another story of the proverbial three-foot creep with a four-foot gun. That these people were prepared for some kind of attack seems clear, but what they had was not all that exotic except in the respect that there was an awful lot of it – something like 4,500 rounds of ammunition. The guns were legally acquired by someone. They’re not very hard to get, frankly, even military-style assault weapons. And as far as ammo is concerned, I am reminded of a kid I knew in my late teens, a musician, whose family maintained a sizable ammunition factory in the basement of their suburban home. I remember rehearsing some songs down there, in a small clearing between the casings, as siblings continued to add to the arsenal. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that my friend and his family had filled 4,500 rounds down there. They never shot up their workplace, but if they had, the basement armory would have been part of the news story.
With regard to the terrorism question, I am not sure what difference it makes. Honestly, if someone is shooting up my workplace, I could care less what his or her motivation is. Typically people are motivated by more than one thing – even jihadi terrorists. Part of the motivation is often provided by their distorted Salafi belief system, but I sometimes think that sham religion acts more as an enabler than an inspiration: you will be okay with the big guy if you do this. That may be mixed with political or personal goals. Nevertheless, the thing that brings Syed Farook and Dylan Klebold together is the freaking gun. They shot a bunch of people to pieces, for whatever harebrained reasons they may have had, and they were able to do so because it’s just too motherfucking easy to get your hands on an AR-15.
We can fix this. We just don’t want to badly enough.
luv u,
jp
