When we woke up this morning, like the rest of you, we learned of movie theater shooting in Aurora by James Holmes. When the report said it was at the premier showing of the Dark Knight Rises, I immediately thought of the above scene and told, The Wife "He wanted to be the Joker. That's the whole motivation behind his attack."
I'll be interested to see if it bears fruit, though it matters not.
I'm a student, as it were, of spree shooters. In my work one has to be a student of many things and, violent people are one of them. There is no mystery to them. In the countless number of profiles I've read most of them didn't "just snap" over some event. Some claim it, without a doubt, but generally they do it because they want to.
On a Monday morning in January 1979, Brenda Ann Spencer, a seventeen year old high school student, opened her bed room window and took aim at a play ground at the elementary school across the street with her .22 rifle and started shooting. When she was arrested she didn't fight, she didn't complain, she just said "I don't like Mondays; this livens up the day."
And that is that.
I grow weary of the immediate blame thrown out by the media, the politicians, and others the hours after these senseless massacres towards every gun owner and conservative. Which is rarely accurate. And in most cases these individuals identify themselves as "anarchists", the type that are in the fringe of the Left more often that the Right. Though politics in any of it is horrid.
The fact is he could have jammed the doors shut taken out gasoline and done the same thing....and its happened. If you don't recall it may be because it's the M.O. of mass killers in parts of the world where there isn't access to guns or ammunition or more likely the money to acquire several hundred dollars of guns and ammo. A few liters of fuel and a willing evil son of a bitch is all that is required.
At the gym today I got a call from someone I know wanting me to weigh in professionally on this. Later he turned the topic to handguns and he told me about the pocket gun he carried religiously...mostly. He wanted to know if it was enough...which the irony is in the blogger dashboard under "draft: Mouseguns". He said finally "you know...my fear is I'd piss my pants if that ever happens." I'll tell you like I told him "piss them and then shoot the son of a bitch".
This is my parting advice to you all. Stop with the ridiculous caliber debates, the "my gun is better than yours because...blah blah" debates. Get the fuck off the seven yard range and hit the 25 yard and yes...the 50 if you can. If your gun doesn't have a front sight or a rear and it can be milled put a fucking set of sights on it. Carry reloads, carry a flashlight....always. Look at the world around you, what is bullet proof, what is not....
Tactics aren't a color or a cloth. They are plans. What is yours?
Finally above all. Be Brave.
We are so devoid of heroes these days.There are three kinds of people, those who commit evil, those who want to reason with evil, and those who stand against it. When "Dark Knight" came out a few years ago I was leaving a cafe' and I saw a teenager wearing a black t-shirt that had the face of Heath Ledger's "Joker" on it. My heart broke. We need every generation to understand that evil isn't to be embraced it's to be fought against....at all costs. At-all-costs.
Don't flee from evil. Engage it. Fight it. Kill it.
