The guy who walked into a classroom at a California university and killed seven people is the latest, (or has there been another more recent) in a long american tradition, that of the lone shooter spewing bullets, randomly but accurately.
My first one, I guess, was the UT tower shooter in Austin in, what, 1965? I was a child, that one grabbed me.Turned out the dude had a tumor in his brain. Then came Richard Speck in Chicago, Charlie Manson, (knives, not guns), and the expansive list of the nineteen seventies, when people started "going postal". Perhaps there is also such a thing as "tumors of the soul".
Our current crop is quite active, making one wonder about the conceal and carry future. True, guns don't kill people...better to have a piece packing population then a tyrannical government.
I don't trust human beings with guns. I sure as hell wouldn't trust myself with one. I think if we all carried guns we'd be back in the wild american west. For those of you in Europe and Asia, see United States History, the Frontier.
My theory is is that we (in america) live in a culture which is a mad scramble for social status, wealth, and power, with winners and losers, and that, with so many losers, some people start to feel like outcasts, and some of them, desperate, start shooting.
A simplistic theory, granted. Maybe we should start to teach our children to pay no attention to social status, and to seek it not, instead seeking to render service to all others, namely, the community.
My ninety two year old mother tells me that her exercise class gets less attention from the instructor than the other exercise class, the one with all the wealthy ladies. She says its obvious. I almost believe her.
I have noticed that my uncle, who is 88, prefers to socialize with people who possess considerable material wealth. I know the feeling. I seem to hang out with poor folk. I do think, however, that in american culture there is a greater tendency now for people to see through all this. Wishful thinking, but hopeful.
May we all learn to get off our illusory high horses, and be truly unconcerned with anything other than our immortal souls... shantih
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