if we take it as fact a killer has the motivations, are you saying no gun he puts those motivations away?
seemscto me hed use something else.
i went back n read. you never provide solutions, just ***** at people a,lot n get in needless fights.
have fun cause it only seems that is your real goal.
Finally -- a real question.
A "killer" would have the same motivation, if he was out to "kill", sure. But that's not what we're talking about here -- this is about the idea of specifically
shooting. There's a distinct difference. As you must know not every shooting is a killing. Just as saying "we have a gun problem" is in no way the same as saying "we have a murder problem".
I'll go more into this a bit later, got something to do.
ive asked a lot of real questions. you didnt like em n blamed me for not paying attention.
take all the guns away would a killer still want to kill?
Yes. A killer, if that's his motivation, still has that motivation. If he hasn't got a gun he finds another way.
I'm getting back to finally finishing this thought after a week away -- had to leave town (and drive through 12 states) to deal with a death and burial.
We're distinguishing here between "murder" and "random violence" (as in either a mass shooter or the present case of a spontaneous killing).
Murder is targeted and personal. A philandering spouse, a collapsed business deal, a revenge for something, a witness who knows too much. Murder has a specific target with a specific name for a specific purpose.
Mass or random killing as in the current event has no such specificity. Despar didn't murder Roberson because of who she was or something she did in the past. She just happened to be "in his way". Could have been anybody.
Here's Emilie Parker:
She died in the Sandy Hook shooting. She was six years old. One of twenty kids and four adults Adam Lanza shot to death. I only single her out so that she becomes a human with a history and not just a number.
Adam Lanza didn't shoot "Emilie Parker" or anyone else with a name and a history and a photo. He shot at whoever was available in his gunsights. Any body, literally any body, would suffice, and did. He had no quarrel with Emilie Parker or anyone else. He was committing gun violence for its own return, and the return would have been identical regardless who the targets were. In other words they were not
humans to him; they were just tools.
I've made this point many times before ---- mass random shooters aren't committing murder for the sake of murder, as in specifically eliminating some specific person.
Murder per se is not their objective; it is just a side effect. Their actual objective is a self-centred
sensory feedback. The sensory feedback that addresses a shaken and sick ego wrapped up in its own self-pity so tightly that they have convinced themselves they're hopelessly powerless, that this powerlessness is overwhelming, and that the way they can ultimately address it is to spray bullets on random targets who either fall helplessly bleeding to death or run in terror. In that moment they achieve the
Power that so eludes them.
And that's exactly why the firearm is the weapon of choice. As long as you have a secure position with visual access to targets, that moment is ultimately
powerful. He is in that moment inferior to no one and no thing including the law. He is the king of the world, however briefly, as long as he can keep the bullets going out. And that's why they're almost always male, and often in an obviously power-challenged situation such as the common case of a disgruntled worker.
A murderer is out to eliminate somebody specific. That goal is equally achieved whether through a gun, a poisoned meal, strangulation, a blunt insturment or even a hired hit man where the killer doesn't have to watch. None of them are done for sensory feedback; they're done to eliminate somebody
personally.
A mass shooter OTOH is anything but personal. Adam Lanza would not have even gone to the school without a gun. There would have been no point in stabbing or poisoning or strangling 20 kids and four adults. James Holmes wouldn't have gone into the movie theater without a gun. Jared Loughner doesn't go to Gabby Giffords' rally without a gun. Etc etc etc. The gun, and what it does for the shooter, is the whole point --- not the murders. They're just a byproduct.
Who the victim is matters not a whit, as long as they bleed, and panic, and scream. Because the shooter isn't there to eliminate anyone specific --- he's simply using whoever is available for his self-centered sensory feedback of blood and guts and screaming.
The same sensory feedback ---
exactly the same sensory feedback --- that he's been teased by in every movie house and every evening of television and every video game and even the superhero comic books and toys he spent his time with as a child.
All of them absolutely unified in sending the messages "shooting is cool" and "in the face of adversity, the thing to do is shoot something, because then you have
Power".
That definition -- that message --- is the root of the gun problem right there. And notice that every pronoun is male. That's deliberate.
And so trivially does it desensitize the masses, that it's actually thinkable for a motorist whose greatest issue in the moment is how to merge into a single lane, to decide he can manage this problem by shooting at it. Because then you have Power.
To look at it another way, mass/random shooting has the same amount to do with murder as rape has to do with sex. In a sense it's the same dynamic derived from the same inadequacy.
