Jun 9, 2014

Las Vegas Mass Shooting: Poltical Entitlement + Guns = Random Acts of Violence

Most recent mass shooting perpetrators' profile picture, dressed up as Batman villains the Joker and Harley Quinn 


Jared and Amanda Miller yesterday morning shot and killed two Las Vegas police officers (aka good guys with guns) then proceeded to charge into a Walmart and shoot to death a customer before committing suicide. The couple expressed radical tendencies to their neighbors and had a proliferate collection of white-supremacy literature and pamphlets in their home. They, according to police reports, were not involved with any larger anti-government or white supremacist movement but made it widely known that was their personally held belief. The motivation for the mass shooting has been attributed to their desire to overthrow the government and that they saw police as an oppressive and illegitimate force.

Their actions are not that of merely a married couple that were prone to violence, but the cultural environment that is permissive if not wholly encouraging jumping to the conclusion that gun violence is acceptable and justifiable response to anything that hasn't met personal expectations. Anarch-Capitalists will often refer to the mass violence committed by the state, the most damning being the threat of violence of imprisonment for failure to pay taxes, always reserve the divinely given right to access weapons and to remain a violent threat towards the government. The paradox that the evil act of systemically implementing a threat of violence (again the threat of imprisonment) while comprehending that freedom can only exist if they have the ability to threaten violence in response to living in a Utopia. The cultural changes that need to be made that even the slightest and least serious claim threat of violence to those hold differing political views should be shamed by those who wish for a more verdant world (ex. Rush Limbaugh's demand to exterminate all liberals except for 2 in each university to be kept as exhibit of why liberals needed to be exterminated... I wish I could think of left-wing examples but even the radicals like Code Pink and PETA demand Republicans be prosecuted or that legislation be enacted to end cruelty towards animals there hasn't left-wing associated political violence since the Weathermen of the 1970s). Political violence whether it be the Millers of the Las Vegas shooting or Hutaree Militia who were foiled by sharing their plans before they could carry out their plan for random acts of gun violence towards police officers. We need to ask the following questions, why does any individual need carbine semi-automatic rifles? If the only answer is that the 2nd Amendment says no law should infringe on the people's right to bear arms, then does the U.S. signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty make it unenforceable due it's unconstitutional nature? Wasn't the rationale given by the Bush administration to invade Iraq (as dubious as it was even at the time) affront to the divine right to possess weapons that is supposedly enshrined in the 2nd Amendment?

My personal belief is that within a civilized society, there is no "right" to violent barbarism nor any implement. One need not legislate away this fetish to have weapons but we can move culture to shun firearms and those that are deluded themselves they need these objects like toddlers crying for their blankies.

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