Another shooting ina government building in DC
Christ I hate typing that. I hate that it's true. And I hate that it's not being hyped the same way it would be if the shooter had been any other ethnicity.
I didn't even hear about it last night. Mind you, since we don't watch TV and rarely listen to the radio in the evening, that only leaves the internet but there was nothing on Facebook or LJ to catch my attention.
It turns out the Pentagon shooter was a "normal" white guy, with a grudge against the government, who drove across the company to shoot up the Pentagon. He was wearing a suit when he attacked and pretty much people thought he was going for his ID when instead he pulled out gun. Luckily, the two guards he shot have already been released from the hospital.
News reports have reported the shooter as being "well-educated". But have also described him as "having issues" and living with his folks. He's also dead, now, as he succumbed to his injuries last night.
As has been pointed out in the comments over in the post at Shakesville about it, if this guy had been anything other that a white guy we'd be hearing all sorts of crap about terror cells and who knows what else. But since it's a white guy and the only person dead is the shooter, it's pretty quite.
The thing is, disgruntled white guys have been wreaking a lot of havoc of late. Off the top of my head we've got the guy who flew his plane into an IRS building last month and killed an IRS employee, as well as himself, Dr. Tiller's murderer, and the guy who shot up the DC Holocaust museum and killed a guard. Who knows who else I've missed.
If these were people of color there would be all sorts of outrage, like what happened at Ft. Hood. (Though, admittedly, Ft. Hood is special because more people were killed.) People would be looking for connections or conspiracies. As it is, as soon as the dude is dead or in jail things quiet down. It seems to me that disgruntled white guys get a pass.
I'm not calling for people to freak out all the time. I just want people to take disgruntled, white guys more seriously as a threat and not treat every person of color as if they are a terrorist ready to kill us all.
I also don't want even more of my civil liberties eroded. I'm worried over it as it happened in Metro DC and at the Pentagon and they really take these things seriously. I really don't want to have to go through ineffectual bag searches that were instituted after 9-11. Security wasn't increased in my office building after either the Ft. Hood attack, the shooting at the Holocaust museum, or the IRS crash, so let's hope nothing new is instituted this time.
The security measures at the Pentagon worked. The only people injured enough to go to the emergency room were the shooter and two guards. Let's hope various review boards support this and we don't have to put up with half-assed "tighter" security.
Luckily, I don't have to go anywhere near the Pentagon at all in my commute. My sympathies for those of y'all that do. Hang in there!
I didn't even hear about it last night. Mind you, since we don't watch TV and rarely listen to the radio in the evening, that only leaves the internet but there was nothing on Facebook or LJ to catch my attention.
It turns out the Pentagon shooter was a "normal" white guy, with a grudge against the government, who drove across the company to shoot up the Pentagon. He was wearing a suit when he attacked and pretty much people thought he was going for his ID when instead he pulled out gun. Luckily, the two guards he shot have already been released from the hospital.
News reports have reported the shooter as being "well-educated". But have also described him as "having issues" and living with his folks. He's also dead, now, as he succumbed to his injuries last night.
As has been pointed out in the comments over in the post at Shakesville about it, if this guy had been anything other that a white guy we'd be hearing all sorts of crap about terror cells and who knows what else. But since it's a white guy and the only person dead is the shooter, it's pretty quite.
The thing is, disgruntled white guys have been wreaking a lot of havoc of late. Off the top of my head we've got the guy who flew his plane into an IRS building last month and killed an IRS employee, as well as himself, Dr. Tiller's murderer, and the guy who shot up the DC Holocaust museum and killed a guard. Who knows who else I've missed.
If these were people of color there would be all sorts of outrage, like what happened at Ft. Hood. (Though, admittedly, Ft. Hood is special because more people were killed.) People would be looking for connections or conspiracies. As it is, as soon as the dude is dead or in jail things quiet down. It seems to me that disgruntled white guys get a pass.
I'm not calling for people to freak out all the time. I just want people to take disgruntled, white guys more seriously as a threat and not treat every person of color as if they are a terrorist ready to kill us all.
I also don't want even more of my civil liberties eroded. I'm worried over it as it happened in Metro DC and at the Pentagon and they really take these things seriously. I really don't want to have to go through ineffectual bag searches that were instituted after 9-11. Security wasn't increased in my office building after either the Ft. Hood attack, the shooting at the Holocaust museum, or the IRS crash, so let's hope nothing new is instituted this time.
The security measures at the Pentagon worked. The only people injured enough to go to the emergency room were the shooter and two guards. Let's hope various review boards support this and we don't have to put up with half-assed "tighter" security.
Luckily, I don't have to go anywhere near the Pentagon at all in my commute. My sympathies for those of y'all that do. Hang in there!