PASSING A NEWSTAND I JUST CAUGHT THE FOLLOWING HEADLINE IN THE LOCAL PAPER, "TENNESSEE SHOOTER AN AVERAGE CITIZEN". JESUS AND JEHOSOPHAT, IF THAT IS "AVERAGE" **** DOES THAT SAY ABOUT US?
A San Diego neighbor of alleged Colorado shooter James Holmes remembers him as a very shy, well-mannered young man who was heavily involved in their local Presbyterian church.
"He seemed to be a normal kid, I don't know what triggered it. This makes me very sad," said Tom Mai, a retired electrical engineer.
No incidents or activities at Nancy Jean Lanza's three-acre home caused alarm or brought undue attention to the divorced mother of two sons.
Then on Friday, her 20-year-old son, Adam, fatally shot Lanza in her 36 Yogalanda St. residence in Newtown and proceeded to kill six adults and 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School before killing himself, police say.
"They seemed very normal. I knew the mom; she was a nice person," said a Yogalanda Street neighbor who did not want her name published
Jessica Vondra, who grew up next door to Aaron Ybarra and his family, said he pulled pranks and constantly made her laugh. The Ybarra children were home-schooled and out almost daily with her and her brother, Brett, she said.
“He was a good kid,” Brett Vondra said in a text message. “He did a terrible thing and it makes me sick but I never thought he would be capable.””
and those are just the first three mass shooters that came to mind. In each case I googled the phrase "[killer] seemed like" and let the news stories I found in the search results complete the sentence for me.
He was a terrorist and this is just the beginning. Call it what ever PC term you want but in short time it will become evident of what this is.
he might very well be -- PC has nothing to do with my comment. Whether terrorist or motivated by some random messed up wiring in the brain (I'm not sure there's a big difference) it's a pretty common news narrative to say "we didn't see it coming" --- and it happens nearly every time that someone decides to start shooting up a public place.
as far as domestic terrorism, it's been around for a while and IMO it's more surprising that we don't have more of it than we do. Doesn't make it any less heinous when it happens, but to think that we will ever reduce it to zero is to ignore history and to deny reality, I think.
Agree with what you're saying Scott, it's just depressing our society has sunk to this level if mass murderers are "average".
that's not the take away I bring out of it.
rather, I think many mass murderers ARE capable of blending in to "normal" society until that moment that some switch goes off. Not necessarily "just like the rest of us" but certainly normal enough that they don't draw much attention. And then at some point, something pushes them over the edge -- perhaps if we better understood those switches, we might do a better job of anticipating and preventing these events.
rather, I think many mass murderers ARE capable of blending in to "normal" society until that moment that some switch goes off. Not necessarily "just like the rest of us" but certainly normal enough that they don't draw much attention. And then at some point, something pushes them over the edge -- perhaps if we better understood those switches, we might do a better job of anticipating and preventing these events.
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Mike
and those are just the first three mass shooters that came to mind. In each case I googled the phrase "[killer] seemed like" and let the news stories I found in the search results complete the sentence for me.
he might very well be -- PC has nothing to do with my comment. Whether terrorist or motivated by some random messed up wiring in the brain (I'm not sure there's a big difference) it's a pretty common news narrative to say "we didn't see it coming" --- and it happens nearly every time that someone decides to start shooting up a public place.
as far as domestic terrorism, it's been around for a while and IMO it's more surprising that we don't have more of it than we do. Doesn't make it any less heinous when it happens, but to think that we will ever reduce it to zero is to ignore history and to deny reality, I think.
that's not the take away I bring out of it.
rather, I think many mass murderers ARE capable of blending in to "normal" society until that moment that some switch goes off. Not necessarily "just like the rest of us" but certainly normal enough that they don't draw much attention. And then at some point, something pushes them over the edge -- perhaps if we better understood those switches, we might do a better job of anticipating and preventing these events.