For years, we’ve been pounded by news of mass killings.<\/p>\n
Every time, the public aftermath concerns one major question: Why?<\/p>\n
To me, there are three tracks to every mass murder, tracks which run independently until they verge toward each other and collide. Two of the tracks are: Why does someone commit such a dreadful act? And how does he pick his targets?<\/p>\n
Motive<\/strong><\/p>\n The motive for killing masses of people is not a motive. A motive is a reason<\/em>. There is no reason in mass killings. And there is no reason to keep asking the question, “Why did he kill?”<\/p>\n No reason, no motive, no why. Only a mindless drive, an eruption of pathological rage. Sometimes the rage comes out of psychosis, sometimes out of malevolent fringe group sociology. When a psychotic ventures to explain what he did, he makes no sense. Sociopaths and paranoids can seem to make sense; they are able to produce language that sounds like our words, although riddled with a hate that makes no sense to us.<\/p>\n People who kill, whether as individuals or in a group, are not driven by rational ideas or rational choices, no matter how strenuously they work at justifying it with lies and distortions and misdirections.<\/p>\n The only “motive” is wordless, violent rage. No other explanation makes any sense.<\/p>\n Targets<\/strong><\/p>\n Too often the people mass killers target have one quality in common: their physiognomy is distinctive. They are noticeably Asian or Black or brown-skinned. If they adhere to a specific religious sect, their clothing can identify them.<\/p>\n For someone whose inchoate rage drives him to kill, a person recognizably distinct from himself is the easiest target. As are people who gather together in community meeting places — synagogues, mosques, churches. Or are contained by the walls of another sort of community meeting place, a mall or nightclub or market.<\/p>\n My empathy for victims is unending and my explosive fury at these killings never, never lessens in intensity. But I don’t think they have been victimized because of who they are. I think they’ve been victimized because they are inalterably distinguishable.<\/p>\n It’s not Asian-Americans’ or Black Americans’ or Latino Americans’ burden to protect themselves or change in some way.<\/p>\n We<\/em> must change. What we must change are laws.<\/p>\n Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n Mass killings occur because unbalanced people get guns.<\/p>\n The tools of these killings are guns.<\/p>\n I’m not a politician so I get to be an absolutist about guns. No one<\/em> should own guns. The millions of weapons now in personal armories should be confiscated and destroyed. Heavy liability must be mandated for all gun manufacturers and gun dealers.<\/p>\n If all politicians can bargain for is some kind of gun control — universal background checks so that disturbed people can’t get their hands on weapons through which they will vent their irrational rage; bans on assault weapons; registration of all guns; criminal charges against gun owners whose weapons have been used in violent acts…<\/p>\n Well, we all know what laws have been laid on the table and what will be barely acceptable efforts to end mass violence. But we can’t put aside one overwhelming central fact: guns are inherently evil. By allowing individuals to own weapons, this country is as crazy as are its armed killers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For years, we’ve been pounded by news of mass killings. Every time, the public aftermath concerns one major question: Why? To me, there are three tracks to every mass murder, tracks which run independently until they verge toward each other … Continue reading