Despite killing 59 people and wounding 527 in a fusillade of
gunfire that lasted nearly ten minutes, Stephen Paddock was not a
terrorist. At least as far as we know at
this time. He sowed terror, no doubt, as
did the Son of Sam, but neither of the two left any sort of manifesto or even
single statement detailing political motives, or motives of any kind, for that
matter. A political motive is what separates
a terrorist from a generic mass murderer.
Sorry about that, Mr. King.
About two weeks before the Las Vegas massacre, Emanuel
Kidega Samson, a Sudan-born legal resident and apparently practising Christian,
walked into Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, to which he
had once belonged, and sprayed it with gunfire after shooting down one of the
parishioners in the parking lot. No
reputable news source referred to Samson as a terrorist, despite the fact that
he is non-native and non-white. Sorry
about that, Mr. King.
A little over two years ago, a Palestinian-American named Mohammad
Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two military installations in Chattanooga,
Tennessee, and was at first branded as a “terrorist”. However, investigation quickly showed that Mohammad,
a graduate of a local high school and of the city’s university, had been suffering
from severe depression and bipolar disorder accompanied with abuse of several
different substances, and by the end of the week, local authorities and media
were talking about him more as a long wolf who had a mental breakdown. Sorry about that, Mr. King.
About a year later, Omar Mateen, an Afghani-American U.S.
citizen, walked into The Pulse nighclub in Orlando, Florida, an establishment
catering primarily to the gay community, and killed 49 people and wounded 58
with gunfire. Though at the time he
swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spiritual leader of Daesh or ISIS,
and claimed to be part of the mujahadeen, investigation turned up no prior
connection between Mateen and al-Baghdadi or any other part of Daesh, so the
claims were dismissed and this brown-skinned immigrant citizen of Middle
Eastern origin was labelled a “lone wolf” by both law enforcement and reputable
media sources. Sorry about that, Mr.
King.
Each of these shooters was a “lone wolf”, and has been
described as such by both law enforcement and media sources. A “lone wolf” is someone acting outside of an
organization on their own. Many of the
recent terror attacks in Europe have been carried out by just such “lone
wolves” and have been referred to as such by law enforcement and media at the
time. Sorry about that, Mr. King.
Andreas Breivek, who killed 77 and wounded 319 people in
Norway, targeting the Norwegian Labour Party, was another such “lone
wolf”. However, since he most definitely
carried out his atrocity for definite political reasons, he without a doubt
fits the definition of a “terrorist” and was called such by law enforcement and
media sources at the time. Sorry about
that, Mr. King.
The Wounded Knee Massacre carried out by troopers of the
U.S. 7th Cavalry was a mass murder inflicted almost entirely with gunfire but
is different than what is now called a “mass shooting” on several
accounts. First, it was carried out by
agents of the state, not a single private individual; second, there were many
more shooters than a single individual or couple of individuals; third, it
counts more as a genocide. Sorry about
that, Mr. King.
While the mass killings of African Americans such as those in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, Rosewood, Florida, and Philips County, Arkansas, involved a
lot of gunfire, those were perpetrated by mobs, sometimes with their intended
victims returning fire in self-defense and often lasted more than a whole
day. Hate crimes? Yes.
Genocide? Yes. Mass shootings, in the modern sense of the
word? Nope, not unless you’re an ally of
the NRA trying to draw attention from the catastrophes caused by their change
in direction with the beginning of their acceptance of money from the arms
industry’s merchants of death. Sorry
about that, Mr. King.
The reason white people, or really any other variety of
human native to or legally resident in the United States is not charged as “terrorists”
is because the federal government has no statute that covers such
incidents. That is an omission that
should be corrected, along with establishing Australian levels of gun control
to stop our ongoing Holocaust of each other.
One Nation Under Fire, from each other and from the police.
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