Hours spent reading reflections on America and the latest elementary school massacre have led me back to Christopher Hitchens writing about George Orwell. I very much want to believe – I plan to act in various ways in accordance with the belief – that there are enough clear-eyed and ethical Americans to start nudging us away from the nightmare the country begins to resemble.
From the simple, psycho, devotees of violence gathered in Idaho militias, to the less organized, more complex population of assault weapon adherents, we have a problem from hell, and must think calmly about how to solve it.
We must start at ground zero: NMAA.
No Motive At All. The older man who killed 58 and injured 1,000 in Vegas had absolutely no discernible reason for doing it, which serves to remind us that some people from vicious parentage/upbringing do what they do (Bernie Madoff, son of two financial criminals, had no discernible motive – he was already legitimately vastly wealthy) for deep-lying atavistic reasons.
The Vegas killer was the son of a big-time crook. Say he had it in his DNA; say he was one of those rare human animals living in a state of bestiality which he kept more or less under control for fifty years or so, but decided to let rip as he reached the end of his life. Although rare, such people really hit the jackpot when they’re born into a culture that begs them to collect massive assault arsenals.
We think Paddock killed a lot of people, but be assured that eventually two friends will do the same thing, shooting out of adjacent windows, and they will have learned a lot from Paddock’s errors.
I suspect for people like this, as with the two notorious Los Angeles bank robbers in the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout, the real satisfaction lies in the long, elaborate preparation — these people took painstaking years to prepare their climaxes.
In terms of sheer body count, NMAAs are our biggest challenge. I think serious intelligence organizations rather than local police forces/the FBI, should be involved in the identification/tracking/detention of these supremely dangerous people. At least until we figure out a way to stop arming them like high-functioning terrorists.