SEARCH BLOG: CRIME.
The news about the shooting at the Newtown, Connecticut, Sandy Hook elementary school is all over television, radio, and the internet. You won't be at a loss for details. What you may be at a loss for is an explanation of why what happened.
There will be discussions about "mental instability" and "gun control" and "warning signs," but because the shooter is dead, there won't be any real answers. That's not acceptable to most, but the puffery that goes on in the name of reporting will try to fill the knowledge void.
What do we know?
We know that the children did not incite the action against them. They were targets, but not causes. We know that the teachers and administrators did not incite action against them. They were targets, but not the justification.
In another country, the attack might have been carried out with explosives and the attacker might have been called a hero... even if some might call him a terrorist. What we call the actions and the actors merely obfuscate the obvious.
What we know is that mass murder is mass murder and reasons are not justifications... especially when children are targeted. What we want to believe is that the mass murderers are deranged and different from the rest of us. They are to the extent that they have carried out horrible, unimaginable actions from our perspective. They have their reasons. We may not understand how they arrived at that state, but they found a path there. We can call it pathological, religious extremism, insanity, or whatever.
We want to understand, but even if we are given reasons, we will not understand... we will only believe the reasons are crazy or malignant. So it is with the killer of these children in Connecticut. There is no understanding; there is no vengeance; there is nothing but loss. The children should always be remembered.
The killer's name should never be spoken again. It will not be written here. He should be consigned to oblivion. The names of all mass murderers should be torn from our collective recognition and only be called evil... for that is all they are.
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