What do the ‘fill in the blank’ - shootings mean?
I spent a portion of my life at Fort Hood, Texas. That place gave me much and I am ever appreciative to this day. So, count me among the dumbfounded and bewildered who, like others, ask why regarding the mass murder that occurred there last week.
I watched with shock as the first stories came out and the wall to wall coverage began. The first report I remember was NBC’s Jim Miklashevski was talking about 3 gunmen and that it couldn’t be caused by PTSD because, well, three gunmen don’t fit “the pattern.” I also remember him saying the phrase “terrorist act” as it hadn’t been ruled out. That analysis just seemed odd and too early to conclude. We know now that it was a single gunmen.
So what does it mean?
Well, what does 13 murdered people in Binghamton mean? Orlando? What do the infamous Luby’s shootings that took place outside of Ft Hood in 1991 mean?
Might want to read James Fallows
In the saturation coverage right after the events, the “expert” talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all such efforts are futile. The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre “mean”? A decade later, do we “know” anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy. In America, they do so with guns; in many countries, with knives; in Japan, sometimes poison.
Read his entire piece (it’s short)
Feel free to turn off the saturation coverage of the next mass murder.
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