Interesting article but sadly it too misses the mark on some points. The very fact people are trying to relegate this to a "terrorist attack" vs keeping this in the broader category of mass killings is a mistake. After all if there was no ISIS and if this guy grew up in a strict evangelical home do you think there is no chance he would have committed this crime?
I do applaud the article though for pointing out the multifactoral nature of these incidents. Just yesterday
Green Line was demanding that we not look at any other contributing factors other than ISIS. Thankfully no one in law enforcement is dumb enough to take that advice. I'm glad the authorities are doing a thorough investigation rather than having a simplistic knee jerk politically self serving reaction.
More criticism of the article now... I think the hobgoblin of false equivalency raised its head again. Some people in the article were quoted as listing certain aspects of this crime. The problem is only one of those things is unique to the United States. I think a bigger problem in America is the lack of scientific knowledge. If you run an experiment and hold all your controls at baseline (homophobia, Islam, etc) and change only one variable (guns) and have an explosion of mass killings the scientific mind would look at that variable. It has nothing to do with politics or grieving. Frankly such a statement is an insult to every other first world democracy on the planet. Is the premise that they are just being "emotional"? Are we going to look at the exceedingly low level of mass killings in those societies and just say the voters in those countries are just "emotional" that's why they aren't killing like crazy?
FACT: Homophobia and Muslims are not a leading cause of death for any group in America. Guns are.When we begin to look at problems scientifically the way all other first world countries do we will see some movement on this issue.
