The way this is playing out, it looks as though (depending on whether you're a responsible human being or just another kook with a "cold, dead hand") James Holmes, the Aurora shooter, is being billed as insane. The gun lobby is looking more and more sinister.
But I wonder if we switched that we'd get closer to the truth.
It is believed that after Holmes arrived at 12:03 a.m., he soon exited the rear of the 415-seat theater through an emergency exit, went to his car in a rear parking lot and donned protective police gear, helmet and gas mask. He then took an assault rifle, handguns and a shotgun, re-entered the theater and began his shooting spree at about 12:35 a.m.
Aurora police officer Jason Oviatt arrested Holmes a few minutes later, after finding him outside, standing with his hands on top of his car. Oviatt said Holmes was "completely compliant" when told to surrender. Oviatt, though, said that when he first spotted Holmes, he thought he was a fellow officer because he was dressed in full body armor and wore a gas mask and helmet. ...USA Today
The sinister actor is, of course, James Holmes, a man about whom we know even less than he apparently knew about himself. Not that he's a healthy individual, but "insane" seems like a cop-out -- as though we're ducking the realization that he is a symptom, not the disease itself.
More important to our society is what we label "insane." And the more I think about it, it's the gun lobby that deserves the insanity label along with the nation that treats them as "normal." There's nothing about them that strikes me as healthy, least of all their claim that they're just protecting themselves from government.
What that comes down to in a democracy -- where the people and the government are the same thing, where we govern ourselves -- is that they're using AK-47's to protect themselves from their own bad judgment much in the way our political leaders use war to protect themselves from their bad judgment.
Cut off your nose... etc. If that isn't insanity, tell me what is!
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