[edit] Now comes the email blow back and an edit in response… as I had posted years ago on the old site, I own a 9mm semi automatic, to go along with wood stoves, a generator and all the other stuff of being prepared (I was a boy scout, after all). So don’t paint me with political agenda, okay? I am not anti-gun ownership. I am anti assault weapons and mass murder. The post had nothing to do with gun ownership. It had to do with a lunatic with a high capacity weapon and some elements that may have helped create him.
If I am going to go off topic about the passing of celebrities, I am going to do so about the Orlando tragedy as well. Then back on topic where I belong, hopefully for a long time.
50+ people were killed by a religious lunatic, a political lunatic or just plain lunatic lunatic just for being who they were. They were killed with an assault weapon like the one given away as a prize by some “freedom” organization a few years ago, with Ron Paul’s name signed to it.
That was after I had given up on Paul, a character I am embarrassed to say I once supported. But when I saw his name signed to an assault weapon give away (I verified its authenticity, since I almost couldn’t believe it), I felt shame for ever having supported the guy. I felt really stupid.
That is because I hate violence in the form of war or anything smaller in scale. I hate it in the name of religion, politics and especially intolerance and hatred toward people going about their own business, harming no one.
So, maybe the shooter was just a lunatic (descriptions paint a picture of an angry, unstable personality) and ISIS jumped on the opportunity to lay claim. But now we are going to get political animals jumping in and spinning while emotions are raw. Mix in the media, which will buzz and buzz and buzz some more. But the hate is us, as well as some readily identifiable evil ‘out there’.
The hate has been born in some minority of churches, temples and mosques, in our political parties and in the ideologies they promote. Hate has been taught, nurtured and ingrained into who some people are because of what they have learned.
Progress is slowly moving us forward and what happened in Orlando has a diverse group of separate constituencies speaking out against it. Would that have been the case 10, 20, 30 years ago? But this sad event will prove helpful to society. It will continue to drive progress.
