in a Facebook argument with an acquaintaince, I pointed out Switzerland as a place where there was high gun ownership, including actual assault rifle ownership, and very little crime. in the course of the discussion I looked up the one mass shooting there in the past 100 years, the Zug massacre. the perpetrator had been filing numerous lawsuits which had been dismissed. since the system had failed him, he took it upon himself to fight the system. as a result of his actions, now the Swiss compile lists of people disgruntled with the authorities, and regularly detain them and search their homes. perhaps unrelated, Swiss gun law became much more strict with the Schengen treaty.
anyway, I was thinking about the Zug massacre in comparison to the Pulse Orlando shooting. in both cases the shooters felt powerless and driven to lash out against those who taunted them: in the first case, the arrogant authorities, who casually dismissed his lawsuits, and the second case, the gays who freely enjoyed their love for one another, while he, oppressed by an overbearing father and religious background, could not.
it isn't the strong and confident who commit such cowardly acts, it's those who have lost hope in their own abilities.
the original argument with my Facebook friend was a quote purportedly by Reagan about how unnecessary AK-47s are for "sporting purposes" or even defense of home. besides his conflating of AK-47s with "machine guns", which were already effectively "banned" with FFA 1938, so most AK clones on the market already being semi-auto, he was the one who signed the detestable Mulford Act into California law to prevent the Black Panthers from their courageous open carry demonstrations in Sacramento. whatever my disagreement with the Panthers' politics, it is undeniable that the image of them proudly marching through the halls of the devil's den, standing tall with their rifles, empowered blacks a hell of a lot more than the government's EBT card ever did or could. the death of that movement set back race relations so badly I don't know if the rift is reparable within my lifetime.
anyway, I'm wandering off topic, I'm not even sure now what this blog post was supposed to convey. gonna hang it up. hope I planted some seeds.
last updated 2016-06-14 20:57:35. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com