"Guns killed my daughter!"
A day or two ago I saw a news clip of an interview with a parent of one of the young women whom Elliot Rodger shot to death in Isla Vista. He was visibly weeping, and understandably very upset. He went on and on and ON about how it wouldn't have happened if guns were banned in this country; as distraught as he was, I could see why he'd think that. BUT.
But not once during that interview did he lay the responsibility for his daughter's death on the shooter. Instead, he seemed to think that guns were responsible for his daughter's death -- as if they had wills of their own and Magickally flew through the air to attck his daughter and others that day. Instead of cussing out the bastard who did the killing, he ranted about how guns were all to blame for it, as if Elliot Rodger really didn't have anything significant to do with it.
Also, he never mentioned the fact that Rodger used knives to kill his three roommates, and ran down a number of people with his car, trying to kill them with the car. Nor was there any mention of the fact that a few days before the shooting incident happened in Isla Vista, Elliot Rodger attended a party on the cliffside/beachfront side of Del Play, an east-west street that together with the structures lining it on both sides forms the southernmost boundary of Isla Vista. It seems that Rodger tried to push several girls off the cliff there, which runs just a few feet from the place where the party was being held. Rodger was told to leave, and nothing else was done about it.
I realize that the poor, distraught man whose daughter had died that was being interviewed may have had much, much more to say about both Rodger and Rodger's means of killing that was not shown on the news clip. The news media kowtow to the Obama administration's orders, and showing more than they did of that clip would not have pleased the Left and the Obama administration. But I also talked yesterday with a friend of mine who lives in Santa Barbara, ten miles or so from Isla Vista, and she, too, talking about nothing but guns, guns, guns being to blame for it all. I had to interject that Rodger had used his car and knives to do his dirty work. At least she did agree with me that Elliot Rodger was a pathologically self-centered, self-entitled little shit not deserving of sympathy. At least in this case people weren't falling back on the time-honored excuse for a killer's actions, "He must have been insane to do such a thing!" She put responsibility for the crime squarely on Mr. Rodger, without roping in "mental illness" or related matters as an excuse for it.
But there are people out there, including many who felt the wind of bullets from Mr. Rodger's guns, passing right by their faces during Mr. Rodger's rampage, who reflexively blame it all on guns together with "poor Mr. Rodger's mental illness" rather than on Rodger's willful, malignantly narcissistic, criminal actions and his own conscious, premeditated decision to undertake those actions. Once upon a time, when someone committed heinours crimes, the American public regarded them as indeed heinous, and cried out for a punishment suitable for someone who would do such things. Instead of blaming such an individual's horrific behavior on artifacts, whether guns, knives, or anything else, they blamed it on that individual, and demanded he or she be called to account for his or her crimes. How did the American people come to accept thet brainless idea that "mental illness" excuses everything, and that responsibility for one's actions lies in whatever artifacts one used to carry out those actions, rather than in the person him- or herself?
Sheep have far more common sense and intelligence than that. Is there something about all the junk food we eat and the contaminants in food, water, and air we take in that has melted down the brains of most Americans? Some of those I've heard such idiotic things from are close to my age -- 69 years -- and went to school at a time when the schools taught the basic skills, encouraged reading, and otherwise worked hard to give us the tools of thought and reason and send us forth to use those tools to learn about life and the world around us. So "the schools" aren't entirely to blame for this insanity. The media must take a huge percentage of the blame -- but they wouldn't have to if people didn't take in the fare they distribute to us as if it were the junk food they crave and eat non-stop. Americans have apparently chosen to surrender the responsibility for what they think and do to the media and the government -- and have done so willfully, by conscious choice. And they are thus the most culpable of this state of affairs of all.
God help us -- no one else can!
But not once during that interview did he lay the responsibility for his daughter's death on the shooter. Instead, he seemed to think that guns were responsible for his daughter's death -- as if they had wills of their own and Magickally flew through the air to attck his daughter and others that day. Instead of cussing out the bastard who did the killing, he ranted about how guns were all to blame for it, as if Elliot Rodger really didn't have anything significant to do with it.
Also, he never mentioned the fact that Rodger used knives to kill his three roommates, and ran down a number of people with his car, trying to kill them with the car. Nor was there any mention of the fact that a few days before the shooting incident happened in Isla Vista, Elliot Rodger attended a party on the cliffside/beachfront side of Del Play, an east-west street that together with the structures lining it on both sides forms the southernmost boundary of Isla Vista. It seems that Rodger tried to push several girls off the cliff there, which runs just a few feet from the place where the party was being held. Rodger was told to leave, and nothing else was done about it.
I realize that the poor, distraught man whose daughter had died that was being interviewed may have had much, much more to say about both Rodger and Rodger's means of killing that was not shown on the news clip. The news media kowtow to the Obama administration's orders, and showing more than they did of that clip would not have pleased the Left and the Obama administration. But I also talked yesterday with a friend of mine who lives in Santa Barbara, ten miles or so from Isla Vista, and she, too, talking about nothing but guns, guns, guns being to blame for it all. I had to interject that Rodger had used his car and knives to do his dirty work. At least she did agree with me that Elliot Rodger was a pathologically self-centered, self-entitled little shit not deserving of sympathy. At least in this case people weren't falling back on the time-honored excuse for a killer's actions, "He must have been insane to do such a thing!" She put responsibility for the crime squarely on Mr. Rodger, without roping in "mental illness" or related matters as an excuse for it.
But there are people out there, including many who felt the wind of bullets from Mr. Rodger's guns, passing right by their faces during Mr. Rodger's rampage, who reflexively blame it all on guns together with "poor Mr. Rodger's mental illness" rather than on Rodger's willful, malignantly narcissistic, criminal actions and his own conscious, premeditated decision to undertake those actions. Once upon a time, when someone committed heinours crimes, the American public regarded them as indeed heinous, and cried out for a punishment suitable for someone who would do such things. Instead of blaming such an individual's horrific behavior on artifacts, whether guns, knives, or anything else, they blamed it on that individual, and demanded he or she be called to account for his or her crimes. How did the American people come to accept thet brainless idea that "mental illness" excuses everything, and that responsibility for one's actions lies in whatever artifacts one used to carry out those actions, rather than in the person him- or herself?
Sheep have far more common sense and intelligence than that. Is there something about all the junk food we eat and the contaminants in food, water, and air we take in that has melted down the brains of most Americans? Some of those I've heard such idiotic things from are close to my age -- 69 years -- and went to school at a time when the schools taught the basic skills, encouraged reading, and otherwise worked hard to give us the tools of thought and reason and send us forth to use those tools to learn about life and the world around us. So "the schools" aren't entirely to blame for this insanity. The media must take a huge percentage of the blame -- but they wouldn't have to if people didn't take in the fare they distribute to us as if it were the junk food they crave and eat non-stop. Americans have apparently chosen to surrender the responsibility for what they think and do to the media and the government -- and have done so willfully, by conscious choice. And they are thus the most culpable of this state of affairs of all.
God help us -- no one else can!