Normally this is a frivolous blog about frivolous subjects, but today I think I have to be serious for a moment.
A 22 year old named Elliot Rodger murdered four men and two women, and injured 13 more in a stabbing and shooting spree across a student enclave called Isla Vista in the California City of Santa Barbara.
As usual people are trying to find the "causes" for his killing spree. They're blaming it on sexual frustration, misogyny, violent video games, mental illness, the National Rifle Association, etc…, etc…, but I think those are all just excuses, which are different than causes.
I've done some research about mass killings in recent years, and separating causes from excuses are hard, because most are not captured alive, and what evidence they leave behind concerning motives either only make sense to their twisted minds, or are self-serving and downright dishonest.
In my research, which is small, but unburdened by some preset agenda, I've determined that the overwhelming cause is narcissism.
Mass killers, from America's biggest Andrew Kehoe who slaughtered 43 (38 children) and wounded 58 with homemade bombs in the Bath Township massacre of 1927 to the recent events in Santa Barbara, all have one thing in common. All mass killers, to varying degrees of delusionality, believe that they're better than everyone else, but feel unfairly denied the power and fame that they think they deserve.
How can they get that power and fame?
Die while committing a terrible atrocity.
If they go down killing as many people as they can their picture will be plastered all over every media outlet, their every brain-fart will be pored over and studied word-for-word by experts, pundits, and know it alls, and laws will be written in their name that will most likely only succeed in punishing the law abiding while doing next to nothing to stop the next sociopathic piece of shit.
Why would these shitbags continue living as nobodies when they can become nightmarish bogeymen, burnt into the national psyche by the 24/7 media cycle. That same news cycle feeds into this cancerous narcissism by plastering their names and pictures everywhere, while trying to place the blame for their atrocities on everyone and everything else but the asshole pulling the trigger. Then come in the politicians and pundits on both sides, trying to use the crime to fit their own agendas, accomplishing nothing that might keep the next agent of chaos from thinking he can become their post-mortem puppet master.
What's also lost in all the breathless hype and blame-gaming is the fact that all violent crimes, including mass shootings are on the decline. All violent crime, murders, rapes, assaults, and even shootings, are down about 47% from where they were in 1990s, and they continue to decline.
THINGS ARE NOT GETTING WORSE!
What we really need to do is find a way to cut off the real cause of such crimes at the root. These maniacs demand attention, infamy, and power, if we find a way to see past our own petty agendas and figure out a way to deny them what they really want, no matter their crime, they may just skip the middleman and kill themselves first, saving the world a lot of grief.
No comments:
Post a Comment