The Arapahoe shooter…
…appears to have been acting alone and was not reported to have telegraphed any particular warning signs, mental illness, or violent tendencies. Good student, excellent debater—who had been kicked off the debating team and was seeking revenge.
That certainly can’t be a common denominator for school shootings. Nor, it seems, could this particular crime have been predicted in any way:
Pierson — who was described as exceptionally bright but difficult and argumentative — was upset about being booted from the debate team.
Minne said the senior had a combative personality.
“He was always the type that wanted to be right. He would always argue with the teacher about scholastic things, whatever we were talking about he always had something to say. Never wanted anyone to tell him he was wrong. I definitely noticed that in the classes I was in with him,” Minne said. “He spoke intelligently, he’s a smart guy, I think he did pretty well in school, he was just kinda weird. … He wasn’t a violent person, he was just verbally aggressive.”
Pierson’s neighbor said he was quiet and seemed like a nice boy but they didn’t really know him well.
The only person Pierson killed was himself, although a student he shot is in critical condition. Librarian Murphy—who was head of the debating team and who seems to have been Pierson’s intended target—was uninjured.
Oh, and of course the left would like to make some sort of political hay of the tragedy. But unfortunately for them, Pierson was a socialist and/or a Keynesian. Some newspaper accounts are murky about this; some mention unspecified “strong political beliefs” and seem to want you to figure it out yourself, because what those beliefs might be are mentioned only quite far along in the articles.
For the record, I don’t suppose that Pierson’s political beliefs had much influence on his violence one way or another; I think the motivation was personal and ultimately suicidal in nature. But I have no doubt that, had Pierson’s beliefs been on the right, they would have been emphasized in news reports of the shooting.
The political belief that people who disagree with you are non human and enemies of Utopia/humanity perfected, isn’t going to give them permission to kill people?
That depends on whether we believe smart intelligent volks can figure out that a reward in heaven for a jihadist is the motivation for the act.
When a political belief is the same as a religious one, or vice a versa, a human can do very funny things.
Btw, how come the media are looking at these stories now? Weren’t there shootings under Bush they could have spun up?
No, it makes sense given his politics. “Inclusion” and unconditional acceptance are everything, absolutely everything, to the left-leaning mentality.
Nothing else in their universe is real. There is no objective transcendent, no place outside the social, no meaning apart from the warmth of the herd.
Of course he killed: when in a world composed of only feelings and nothingness, he was left with nothingness.
By the way, as far as I know, the only one he succeeded in killing was himself … thus far.
His victim is critical with massive head trauma. What does that mean? Eyes? Nose? Jaw?
Will she ever be the same? Will she wish she were dead?